Explore "The Portent. 1859 (Poems from Battle Pieces)" by Herman Melville on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Hanging from the beam, / Slowly swaying (such the law), / Gaunt the shadow on your green, / Shenandoah!
The cut is on the crown / (Lo, John Brown), / And the stabs shall heal no more.
Hidden in the cap / Is the anguish none can draw; / So your future veils its face, / Shenandoah!
But the streaming beard is shown / (Weird John Brown), / The meteor of the war.