Melville's 'The College Colonel'

Melville's 'The College Colonel' is one of his Civil War poems, and it speaks clearly against the horrors of war. Melville uses a celebratory homecoming scene to show this horror through a contrast between the returning soldier and his surroundings.

The character named in the title rides at the head of a group of soldiers. He has been injured as his arm is in a sling and he carries a crutch, suggesting that he is returning from battle. The first stanza gives this physical description and it hints at the colonel's demeanor: he guides the steed coldly. Whatever his injuries, he is still able to handle a strong horse, so though he may be maimed, he is still functions somewhat independently. In the first stanza the speaker also addresses a 'you,' telling that person, "One arm slung is in splints, you see" (3). This is the only reference to audience, but it suggests that the speaker wants the listener to be aware of something. Asking 'you see?' is a way of making sure a person understands something and does not just see a sight. It sets up an expectation that the reader is to come to an understanding about whatever the speaker is saying, going beyond mere description of a scene.

The second stanza is the longest at eight lines. Except for five-line third and sixth stanzas, the other three stanzas are quatrains, and they all rhyme in an A-B-C-B pattern common to narrative poetry. The second stanza does not follow any such pattern, and though there is rhyme, it is the second, fifth, sixth and eighth lines. The colonel is bringing his regiment home, but they are "Not as they filed two years before" (6). The speaker calls them a remnant of what they were when they left and likens them through simile to sailors beaten by the sea. They have been "stunned / by the surf's loud roar" (8-9), and many of their comrades have been lost. After repeatedly trying to fight the surge, these surviving soldiers "at last crawl, spent, to shore" (12). The enemy that has beaten and stunned them is an uncontrollable force against which they are helpless, just as the ocean is an uncontrollable force that men can only hope to survive but never control. Characterizing the enemy as such suggests not a physical opponent but perhaps war itself. An opponent can be beaten, but war, in its essence, is a thing that men will always lose to.

The stanza begins quickly, and lines five through eight have a clear rhythm. Lines six and eight contain internal rhyme, "two" and "who," as does line seven, with "half-tattered and battered," and the rhyme moves the reader along. But just after these lines, the poem slows dramatically. Line eight ends with a long dash, and then "stunned," breaking the rhythm. Line nine, "By the surf's loud roar," contains long vowel sounds to slow the pace. This creates a noticeable audible contrast that occurs as the sailors meet the sea, begun with the word "stunned," reinforcing the idea of unexpected hardship.

Stanza three closes in on the colonel again, now describing his demeanor, rigid and pale, with "An Indian aloofness" (14). The third line of the stanza is separated from the description by a semicolon, suggesting a close relationship and thus the cause of the colonel's aloofness: "He has lived a thousand years / Compressed in battle's pains and prayers" (15-16). The fear and violence of battle and the drudgery of "Marches and watches slow" have aged him. This stanza has an extra line, perhaps a subtle way of slowing the reader through the long days and nights.

The fourth stanza describes the celebratory atmosphere of the colonel's surroundings. People are shouting, waving flags, tossing their hats in the air, and tossing wreaths at his feet from balconies. He is referred to as a "Boy" (19) by the old men, a clue that his outward appearance is youthful and a contrast to the fact that he "has lived a thousand years" (15). The last line of the stanza returns abruptly to the colonel: "But to him-there comes alloy. The 'but' signals a contrast between what he thinks compared to those around him who are celebrating. Alloy means to mix an inferior metal with a superior one, such as gold or silver, debasing it. He is not able to enjoy his homecoming, in contrast to those around him, because something is lessening it.

The fifth stanza explains what the colonel's alloy in not: a leg lost, an arm maimed, or a fever that has racked his body. The thing that dampens the colonel's ability to feel joy or welcome at his homecoming is not his physical change, for "Self he has long disclaimed" (25). These are serious and debilitating injuries that will be with him for the rest of his life. He will never be the same without a leg, perhaps never able to work again, or at least severely limited in what he is able to do with himself. But these injuries, it seems, are not the true source of his angst.

The sixth and final stanza now provides the source of the colonel's alloy. The colonel has been through the Seven Days' Fight and the battles of Wilderness and Petersburg. He has spent time in a field hospital and in a Confederate prison. During these experiences, "there came- / Ah heaven!-what truth to him" (30-31). Not that he was injured, but that while he was in the field hospital he had time to think, and while he was in prison he had time to brood. What ails him is mental, not physical. Like his physical injuries, though much worse, it is the result of his time at war. Melville never says what this "truth" is that came to the colonel, but there are clues in the poem as to what it could be, and possibly it is not an idea that lends itself easily to concise explication. The colonel guides his steed coldly, and he is rigid, pale and aloof. He cannot enjoy the celebration around him.

Since the colonel spent time in Libby, a Confederate prison, he is a Union soldier, thus his cause was ultimately victorious. He should be extremely joyous. Returning to the ocean simile, he again and again fought something but finally could only crawl to shore, not conquering it at all but simply retreating. This is not an image of victory, but of defeat. He cannot celebrate like those around him, and he is in possession of "truth," suggesting that this truth is some larger truth about the result of this war. The title refers to the colonel as a "college" colonel. College is a place for further, higher, or professional education, but here is it describing this colonel, suggesting that he is in possession of some further or higher knowledge. Colleges are traditionally elite places, reinforcing the aloneness of the colonel in knowing what he does. He appears young, but he has aged. Though he appears victorious, he knows he is not, because war is like the sea, and man can at best hope to survive it. This is what the speaker wants to audience to see.