Nay,—­act like brave men, as ye are,—­
      Nor let the despot, sin,
    Wrest those immortal rights away,
      Which Christ has died to win.

    For Heaven—­best home—­true fatherland,
      Bear toil, reproach and loss,
    Your highest honor,—­holiest name,—­
      The soldiers of the Cross!

VIII.

    “My Douglass! my darling!—­there once was a time,
    When we to each other confessed the sublime
    And perfect sufficiency love could bestow,
    On the hearts that have learned its completeness to know;
    We felt that we too had a well-spring of joy,
    That earthly convulsions could never destroy,—­
    A mossy, sealed fountain, so cool and so bright,
    It could solace the soul, let it thirst as it might.

    “’Tis easy, while happiness strews in our path,
    The richest and costliest blessings it hath,
    ’Tis easy to say that no sorrow, no pain,
    Could utterly beggar our spirits again;
    ’Tis easy to sit in the sunshine, and speak
    Of the darkness and storm, with a smile on the cheek!

    “As hungry and cold, and with weariness spent,
    You droop in your saddle, or crouch in your tent;
    Can you feel that the love so entire, so true,
    The love that we dreamed of,—­is all things to you? 
    That come what there may,—­desolation or loss,
    The prick of the thorn, or the weight of the cross—­
    You can bear it,—­nor feel you are wholly bereft,
    While the bosom that beats for you only, is left? 
    While the birdlings are spared that have made it so blest,
    Can you look, undismayed, on the wreck of the nest?

    “There’s a love that is tenderer, sweeter than this—­
    That is fuller of comfort, and blessing, and bliss;
    That never can fail us, whatever befall—­
    Unchanging, unwearied, undying, through all: 
    We have need of the support—­the staff and the rod;—­
    Beloved! we’ll lean on the bosom of God!

    “You guess what I fain would keep hidden:—­you know,
    Ere now, that the trail of the insolent foe
    Leaves ruin behind it, disastrous and dire,
    And burns through our Valley, a pathway of fire. 
    —­Our beautiful home,—­as I write it, I weep,
    Our beautiful home is a smouldering heap! 
    And blackened, and blasted, and grim, and forlorn,
    Its chimneys stand stark in the mists of the morn!

    “I stood in my womanly helplessness, weak—­
    Though I felt a brave color was kindling my cheek—­
    And I plead by the sacredest things of their lives—­
    By the love that they bore to their children,—­their wives,
    By the homes left behind them, whose joys they had shared,
    By the God that should judge them,—­that mine should be spared.

    “As well might I plead with the whirlwind to stay
    As it crashingly cuts through the forest its way! 
    I know that my eye flashed a passionate ire,
    As they scornfully flung me their answer of—­fire!