Taps At West Point Poem by John Jay Chapman

THE dim and wintry river lies
Torpid and ice-bound, like a giant snake;
And, shouldering round his course, the mountains rise,
Hedging his waters to a frozen lake;
And over him in tattered shrouds
Drift the disconsolate, low-stooping clouds,
That slowly form and climb and sheathe
Some dark and slippery crag;
Then break to a dissolving wreath,
Or make a window for the ground
Where, on Fort Putnam's holy mound
Gleams the bright, silent flag.

West Point! The Eagle of the West
Has searched the wilderness to find
A fitting spot to build a martial nest,
Some skyey shelter from the wind,
A refuge from the north—
Rock-bound, inviolate;—
And here upon the mountain ledge
Facing the Highland Gate,
He builds his eyrie and looks forth
Between black headlands streaked with rills,
And sees the winding river-edge
Die in the distance, pillared by the hills.

But now the nest is snow-clad: the abyss
Smokes like a crater, and from east to west
Pine-trees are whispering across the crest
In little puffs and jets of steam,
That meet and kiss
A thousand feet above the frozen stream.
'The Storm King nods,' they say.—
The Storm King dreams!—and they
Are creatures of his dream.

Upon a dainty table-land
Where the redundant river turns
And hugs the acre to its breast,
A little grave-yard juts above the strand,
With tombs and walks and quiet urns,
Trophies and tablets quaintly dressed
And graved with many an honored name
Of those who drew the sword or nursed the flame
Of Mars, among whose monuments they rest.

And there upon the higher ground,
New-digged and strown with branches green
To grace the trench and hide the mound,
An open grave is seen.
A dirge, low-blown upon sonorous brass,
Is floating up the glen,
And swells to triumph as they pass
With heavy tramp of armèd men
That shakes the dwellings of the dead,
Till each old warrior lifts his head
To hear the trumpet speak again.

Slowly the moving pageant looms
With emblems dark and bright;
And bayonets glance among the mossy tombs;
The bier, the flag, the mourners come in sight,
Framed by the steady musket-line
That makes their deeper meanings shine
With concentrated light.
And hark, a volley at the grave!
With echoes from the rifle-shock,—
Voices that leap from rock to rock.
They mingle with the murmurs half divine
Of Nature's music in each dark ravine,
And speed to mountain and to wave
The challenge that the salvo gave:—
'Love, Death, Our Country,—Honor, Discipline.'