Saturday Poetry Corner: Shiloh: A Requiem

"The Lord made many to stumble and fall; yes, they fell one upon another.
 And they said, Arise, and let us go back to our own people and to the
land of our birth, away from the sword of the oppressor."
(Jeremiah 46:16)

The Sunken Road

Shiloh National Military Park Tennessee

Photograph courtesy/Nancy Carter/North Wind Picture Archive
/media storehouse

Skimming lightly, wheeling still,

The swallows fly low

Over the fields in clouded days,

The forest-field of Shiloh-

Over the field where April rain

Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain

Through the pause of night

That followed the Sunday fight

Around the church of Shiloh-

The church so lone, the log-built one,

That echoed to many a parting groan

And natural prayer

Of dying foemen mingled there-

Foemen at morn, but friends at eve-

Fame or country least their care:

(What like a bullet can undeceive!)

But now they lie low,

When over them the swallows skim,

And all is hushed at Shiloh.

Shiloh: A Requiem 
(1866)
Herman Melville
(1819-1891)
American novelist, short story writer
and poet of the American Renaissance period.

The Battle of Shiloh, also called the Battle of Pittsburg Landing was a major battle
 in the American Civil War fought on April 6-7 1862 in southwestern Tennessee.