The Two Armies

Two armies stand enrolled beneath

The banner with the starry wreath;

One, facing battle, blight and blast,

Through twice a hundred fields has passed;

Its deeds against a ruffian foe,

Steam, valley, hill, and mountain know,

Till every wind that sweeps the land

Goes, glory laden, from the strand.

The other, with a narrower scope,

Yet led by not less grand a hope,

Hath won, perhaps, as proud a place,

And wears its fame with meeker grace.

Wives march beneath its glittering sign,

Fond mothers swell the lovely line,

And many a sweetheart hides her blush

In the young patriot’s generous flush.

No breeze of battle ever fanned

The colors of that tender band;

Its office is beside the bed,

Where throbs some sick or wounded head.

It does not court the soldier’s tomb,

But plies the needle and the loom;

And, by a thousand peaceful deeds,

Supplies a struggling nation’s needs.

Nor is that army’s gentle might

Unfelt amid the deadly fight;

It nerves the son’s, the husband's hand,

It points the lover’s fearless brand;

It thrills the languid, warms the cold,

Gives even new courage to the bold;

And sometimes lifts the veriest clod

To its own lofty trust in God.

When Heaven shall blow the trump of peace,

And bid this weary warfare cease,

Their several missions nobly done,

The triumph grasped, and freedom won,

Both armies, from their toils at rest,

Alike may claim the victor’s crest,

But each shall see its dearest prize

Gleam softly from the other’s eyes.

Source: “Words for the Hour”: A New Anthology of American Civil War Poetry, edited by Faith Barrett and Cristanne Miller (University of Massachusetts Press, 2005)