What Like A Bullet Can Deceive

Sonnet C

by George Henry Boker

For life and death to me are so akin,
So aptly one suggests the other’s being;
So quickly treads behind existence fleeing
The dark pursuer, sure at last to win;
That when life’s frolics o’er the world begin,
In the stern presence of my darker seeing,
There moves a shadow, every way agreeing
With each gay motion that he revels in.
Even the sweet wonder of thy slender shape
A graceful shade is haunting hour by hour;
And in the future there begin to lower
The signs that make the stricken household drape
Their tearful faces o’er with sullen crape–
Why should I trust in life’s unstable power?

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Shiloh:  A Requiem

by Herman Melville

Skimming lightly, wheeling still,
The swallows fly low
Over the field 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 A
round 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,
While over them the swallows skim,
And all is hushed at Shiloh.