Explore "On the Photograph of a Corps Commander (Poems from Battle Pieces)" by Herman Melville on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Ay, man is manly. Here you see / The warrior-carriage of the head, / And brave dilation of the frame; / And lighting all, the soul that led / In Spottsylvania's charge to victory, / Which justifies his fame.
A cheering picture. It is good / To look upon a Chief like this, / In whom the spirit moulds the form.
Here favoring Nature, oft remiss, / With eagle mien expressive has endued / A man to kindle strains that warm.
Trace back his lineage, and his sires, / Yeoman or noble, you shall find / Enrolled with men of Agincourt, / Heroes who shared great Harry's mind.
Down to us come the knightly Norman fires, / And front the Templars bore.
Nothing can lift the heart of man / Like manhood in a fellow-man.
The thought of heaven's great King afar / But humbles us-too weak to scan; / But manly greatness men can span, / And feel the bonds that draw.