15 - Shiloh
Herman Melville
Equis Wang
Shiloh.
Ancient Israelite worship center, generally translated as Tranquil Place, and therefore an emblem of peace, but also a version of the messiah; hence: "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be" (Genesis 49:10). Melville also referred to Hawthorne as "the literary Shiloh of America" in "Hawthorne and his Mosses" (NN Piazza Tales, 181). See also "The Bell Tower": "A silence, as of the expectation of some Shiloh, pervaded the swarming plain" (NN Piazza Tales, 252).
A Requiem.
(April, 1862.)
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
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,
While over them the swallows skim,
And all is hushed at Shiloh.