When I Was Small, A Woman Died

poem 596

When I was small, a Woman died Today her Only Boy Went up from the Potomac His face all Victory To look at her How slowly The Seasons must have turned Till Bullets clipt an Angle And He passed quickly round If pride shall be in Paradise Ourself cannot decide Of their imperial Conduct No person testified But, proud in Apparition That Woman and her Boy Pass back and forth, before my Brain As even in the sky I’m confident that Bravoes Perpetual break abroad For Braveries, remote as this In Scarlet Maryland