The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copyrighted by BookRags, Inc.
Table of Contents | |
Section | Page |
Start of eBook | 1 |
A Rhyme of the War. | 1 |
A | 1 |
I. | 1 |
II. | 3 |
III. | 7 |
IV. | 9 |
V. | 11 |
VI. | 13 |
VII. | 15 |
VIII. | 18 |
IX. | 19 |
X. | 22 |
JACKSON. | 23 |
DIRGE FOR ASHBY. | 24 |
WHEN THE WAR IS OVER. | 26 |
I. | 26 |
II. | 26 |
III. | 26 |
IV. | 26 |
V. | 27 |
I. | 27 |
II. | 27 |
III. | 27 |
IV. | 27 |
V. | 27 |
VI. | 27 |
VII. | 28 |
VIII. | 28 |
* * * * *
BY
Margaret J. Preston.
* * * * *
Baltimore:
Kelly & PIET, publishers,
174 Baltimore Street,
1866.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year
1866, by Kelly & PIET,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court
for the District of Maryland.
Dedication.
To every Southern woman, who
has been Widowed by the War,
I dedicate this Rhyme, published
During the Progress of the
struggle
and now re-produced—as
A Faint Memorial of Sufferings,
of which there can be no
forgetfulness.
M.J.P.
* * * * *
Beechenbrook;
Rhyme of the war.
* * * * *
There is sorrow in Beechenbrook
Cottage; the day
Has been bright with the earliest
glory of May;
The blue of the sky is as
tender a blue
As ever the sunshine came
shimmering through:
The songs of the birds and
the hum of the bees,
As they merrily dart in and
out of the trees,—
The blooms of the orchard,
as sifting its snows,
It mingles its odors with
hawthorn and rose,—
The voice of the brook, as
it lapses unseen,—
The laughter of children at
play on the green,—
Insist on a picture so cheerful,
so fair,
Who ever would dream that
a grief could be there!
The last yellow sunbeam slides
down from the wall,
The purple of evening is ready
to fall;
The gladness of daylight is
gone, and the gloom
Of something like sadness
is over the room.
Right bravely all day, with
a smile on her brow,
Has Alice been true to her
duty,—but now
Her tasks are all ended,—naught
inside or out,
For the thoughtfullest love
to be busy about;
The knapsack well furnished,
the canteen all bright,
The soldier’s grey dress
and his gauntlets in sight,
The blanket tight strapped,
and the haversack stored,
And lying beside them, the
cap and the sword;
No last, little office,—no
further commands,—
No service to steady the tremulous
hands;
All wife-work,—the
sweet work that busied her so,
Is finished:—the
dear one is ready to go.
Not a sob has escaped her
all day,—not a moan;
But now the tide rushes,—for
she is alone.
On the fresh, shining knapsack
she pillows her head,
And weeps as a mourner might
weep for the dead.
She heeds not the three-year
old baby at play,
As donning the cap, on the
carpet he lay;
Till she feels on her forehead,
his fingers’ soft tips,
And on her shut eyelids, the
touch of his lips.
“Mamma is so
sorry!—Mamma is so sad!
But Archie can make her look
up and be glad:
I’ve been praying to
God, as you told me to do,
That Papa may come back when
the battle is thro’:—
He says when we pray, that
our prayers shall be heard;
And Mamma, don’t you
always know, God keeps his word?”
Around the young comforter
stealthily press
The arms of his father with
sudden caress;
Then fast to his heart,—love
and duty at strife,—
He snatches with fondest emotion,
his wife.
“My own love! my precious!—I
feel I am strong;
I know I am brave in opposing
the wrong;
I could stand where the battle
was fiercest, nor feel
One quiver of nerve at the
flash of the steel;
I could gaze on the enemy
guiltless of fears,
But I quail at the sight of
your passionate tears:
My calmness forsakes me,—my
thoughts are a-whirl,
And the stout-hearted man
is as weak as a girl.
I’ve been proud of your
fortitude; never a trace
Of yielding, all day, could
I read in your face;
But a look that was resolute,
dauntless and high,
As ever flashed forth from
a patriot’s eye.
I know how you cling to me,—know
that to part
Is tearing the tenderest cords
of your heart:
Through the length and the
breadth of our Valley to-day,
No hand will a costlier sacrifice
lay
On the altar of Country; and
Alice,—sweet wife!
I never have worshipped you
so in my life!
Poor heart,—that
has held up so brave in the past,—
Poor heart! must it break
with its burden at last?”
The arms thrown about him,
but tighten their hold,
The cheek that he kisses,
is ashy and cold,
And bowed with the grief she
so long has suppressed,
She weeps herself quiet and
calm on his breast.
At length, in a voice just
as steady and clear
As if it had never been choked
by a tear,
She raises her eyes with a
softened control,
And through them her husband
looks into her soul.
“I feel that we each
for the other could die;
Your heart to my own makes
the instant reply:
But dear as you are, Love,—my
life and my light,—
I would not consent to your
stay, if I might:
No!—arm for the
conflict, and on, with the rest;
Virginia has need of her bravest
and best!
My heart—it must
bleed, and my cheek will be wet,
Yet never, believe me, with
selfish regret:
My ardor abates not one jot
of its glow,
Though the tears of the wife
and the woman will flow.
“Our cause is so holy,
so just, and so true,—
Thank God! I can give
a defender like you!
For home, and for children,—for
freedoms—for bread,—
For the house of our God,—for
the graves of our dead,—
For leave to exist on the
soil of our birth,—
For everything manhood holds
dearest on earth:
When these are the
things that we fight for—dare I
Hold back my best treasure,
with plaint or with sigh?
My cheek would blush crimson,—my
spirit be galled,
If he were not there
when the muster was called!
When we pleaded for peace,
every right was denied;
Every pressing petition turned
proudly aside;
Now God judge betwixt us!—God
prosper the right!
To brave men there’s
nothing remains, but to fight:
I grudge you not, Douglass,—die,
rather than yield,—
And like the old heroes,—come
home on your shield!”
The morning is breaking:—the
flush of the dawn
Is warning the soldier, ’tis
time to be gone;
The children around him expectantly
wait,—
His horse, all caparisoned,
paws at the gate:
With face strangely pallid,—no
sobbings,—no sighs,—
But only a luminous mist in
her eyes,
His wife is subduing the heart-throbs
that swell,
And calming herself for a
quiet farewell.
There falls a felt silence:—the
note of a bird,
A tremulous twitter,—is
all that is heard;
The circle has knelt by the
holly-bush there,—
And listen,—there
comes the low breathing of prayer.
“Father! fold thine
arms of pity
Round us as we
lowly bow;
Never have we kneeled before
Thee
With such burden’d
hearts as now!
Joy has been our constant
portion,
And if ill must
now befall,
With a filial acquiescence,
We would thank
thee for it all.
In the path of present duty,
With Thy hand
to lean upon,
Questioning not the hidden
future,
May we walk serenely
on.
For this holy, happy home-love,
Purest bliss that
crowns my life,—
For these tender, trusting
children,—
For this fondest,
faithful wife,—
Here I pour my full thanksgiving;
And, when heart
is torn from heart,
Be our sweetest tryst-word,
’Mizpah,’—
Watch betwixt
us while we part!
And if never round this altar,
We should kneel
as heretofore,—
If these arms in benediction
Fold my precious
ones no more,—
Thou, who in her direst anguish,
Sooth’dst
thy mother’s lonely lot,
In thy still unchanged compassion,
Son of Man! forsake
them not!”
The little ones each he has caught to his breast, And clasped them, and kissed them with fervent caress; Then wordless and tearless, with hearts running o’er, They part who have never been parted before: He springs to his saddle,—the rein is drawn tight,— And Beechenbrook Cottage is lost to his sight.
The feathery foliage has broadened
its leaves,
And June, with its beautiful
mornings and eves,
Its magical atmosphere, breezes
and blooms,
Its woods all delicious with
thousand perfumes,—
First-born of the Summer,—spoiled
pet of the year,—
June, delicate queen of the
seasons, is here!
The sadness has passed from
the dwelling away,
And quiet serenity brightens
the day:
With innocent prattle, her
toils to beguile,
In the midst of her children,
the mother must smile.
With matronly cares,—those
relentless demands
On the strength of her heart
and the skill of her hands,—
The hours come tenderly, ceaselessly
fraught,
And leave her small space
for the broodings of thought.
Thank God!—busy
fingers a solace can find,
To lighten the burden of body
or mind;
And Eden’s old curse
proves a blessing instead,—
“In the sweat of thy
brow shalt thou toil for thy bread.”
For the bless’d relief
in all labours that lurk,
Aye, thank Him, unhappy ones,—thank
Him for work!
Thus Alice engages her thoughts
and her powers,
And industry kindly lends
wings to the hours:
Poor, petty employments they
sometimes appear,
And on her bright needle there
plashes a tear,—
Half shame and half passion;—what
would she not dare
Her fervid compatriots’
struggles to share?
It irks her,—the
weakness of womanhood then,—
Yet such are the tears that
make heroes of men!
She feels the hot blood of
the nation beat high;
With rapture she catches the
rallying cry:
From mountain and valley and
hamlet they come!
On every side echoes the roll
of the drum.
A people as firm, as united,
as bold,
As ever drew blade for the
blessings they hold,
Step sternly and solemnly
forth in their might,
And swear on their altars
to die for the right!
The clangor of muskets,—the
flashing of steel,—
The clatter of spurs on the
stout-booted heel,—
The waving of banners,—the
resonant tramp
Of marching battalions,—the
fiery stamp
Of steeds in their war-harness,
newly decked out,—
The blast of the bugle,—the
hurry, the shout,—
The terrible energy, eager
and wild,
That lights up the face of
man, woman and child,—
That burns on all lips, that
arouses all powers;
Did ever we dream that such
times would be ours?
One thought is absorbing,
with giant control,—
With deadliest earnest, the
national soul:—
“The right of self-government,
crown of our pride,—
Right, bought with the sacredest
blood,—is denied!
Shall we tamely resign what
our enemy craves?
No! martyrs we may
be!—we cannot be slaves!”
Fair women who naught but
indulgence have seen,
Who never have learned what
denial could mean,—
Who deign not to clipper their
own dainty feet,
Whose wants swarthy handmaids
stand ready to meet,
Whose fingers decline the
light kerchief to hem,—
What aid in this struggle
is hoped for from them?
Yet see! how they haste from
their bowers of ease,
Their dormant capacities fired,—to
seize
Every feminine weapon their
skill can command,—
To labor with head, and with
heart, and with hand.
They stitch the rough jacket,
they shape the coarse shirt,
Unheeding though delicate
fingers be hurt;
They bind the strong haversack,
knit the grey glove,
Nor falter nor pause in their
service of love.
When ever were people subdued,
overthrown,
With women to cheer them on,
brave as our own?
With maidens and mothers at
work on their knees,
When ever were soldiers as
fearless as these?
June’s flower-wreathed
sceptre is dropped with a sigh,
And forth like an empress
steps stately July:
She sits all unveiled, amidst
sunshine and balms,
As Zenobia sat in her City
of Palms!
Not yet has the martial horizon
grown dun,
Not yet has the terrible conflict
begun:
But the tumult of legions,—the
rush and the roar,
Break over our borders, like
waves on the shore.
Along the Potomac, the confident
foe
Stands marshalled for onset,—prepared,
at a blow,
To vanquish the daring rebellion,
and fling
Utter ruin at once on the
arrogant thing!
How sovran the silence that
broods o’er the sky,
And ushers the twenty-first
morn of July;
—Date, written
in fire on history’s scroll,—
—Date, drawn in
deep blood-lines on many a soul!
There is quiet at Beechenbrook:
Alice’s brow
Is wearing a Sabbath tranquility
now,
As softly she reads from the
page on her knee,—
“Thou wilt keep him
in peace who is stayed upon Thee!”
When Sophy bursts breathlessly
into the room,—
“Oh! mother! we hear
it,—we hear it!.., the boom
Of the fast and the fierce
cannonading!—it shook
The ground till it trembled,
along by the brook.”
One instant the listener sways
in her seat,—
The paralysed heart has forgotten
to beat;
The next, with the speed and
the frenzy of fear,
She gains the green hillock,
and pauses to hear.
Again and again the reverberant
sound
Is fearfully felt in the tremulous
ground;
Again and again on their senses
it thrills,
Like thunderous echoes astray
in the hills.
On tip-toe,—the
summer wind lifting his hair,
With nostril expanded, and
scenting the air
Like a mettled young war-horse
that tosses his mane,
And frettingly champs at the
bit and the rein,—
Stands eager, exultant, a
twelve-year-old boy,
His face all aflame with a
rapturous joy.
“That’s music for heroes in battle array! Oh, mother! I feel like a Roman to-day! The Romans I read of in Plutarch;—Yes, men Thought it noble to die for their liberties then! And I’ve wondered if soldiers were ever so bold, So gallant and brave, as those heroes of old. —There!—listen!—that volley peals out the reply; They prove it is sweet for their country to die: How grand it must be! what a pride! what a joy! —And I can do nothing: I’m only a boy!”
The fervid hand drops as he
ceases to speak,
And the eloquent crimson fades
out on his cheek.
“Oh, Beverly!—brother!
It never would do!
Who comforts mamma, and who
helps her like you?
She sends to the battle her
darlingest one,—
She could not give both of
them,—husband and son;
If she lose you, what’s
left her in life to enjoy?
—Oh, no! I
am glad you are only a boy.”
And Sophy looks up with her
tenderest air,
And kisses the fingers that
toy with her hair.
For her, who all silent and
motionless stands,
And over her heart locks her
quivering hands,
With white lips apart, and
with eyes that dilate,
As if the low thunder were
sounding her fate,—
What racking suspenses, what
agonies stir,
What spectres these echoes
are rousing for her!
Brave-natur’d, yet quaking,—high-souled,
yet so pale,—
Is it thus that the wife of
a soldier should quail,
And shudder and shrink at
the boom of a gun,
As only a faint-hearted girl
should have done?
Ah! wait until custom has
blunted the keen,
Cutting edge of that sound,
and no woman, I ween,
Will hear it with pulses more
equal, more free
From feminine terrors and
weakness, than she.
The sun sinks serenely; a
lingering look
He flings at the mists that
steal over the brook,
Like nuns that come forth
in the twilight to pray,
Till their blushes are seen
through their mantles of grey.
The gay-hearted children,
but lightly oppressed,
Find perfect relief on their
pillow of rest:
For Alice, no bless’d
forgetfulness comes;—
The wail of the bugles,—the
roll of the drums,—
The musket’s sharp crack,—the
artillery’s roar,—
The flashing of bayonets dripping
with gore,—
The moans of the dying,—the
horror, the dread,
The ghastliness gathering
over the dead,—
Oh! these are the visions
of anguish and pain,—
The phantoms of terror that
troop through her brain!
She pauses again and again
on the floor,
Which the moonlight has brightened
so mockingly o’er;
She wrings her cold hands
with a groan of despair;
—“Oh, God!
have compassion!—my darling is there!”
All placidly, dewily, freshly,
the dawn
Comes stealing in pulseless
tranquility on:
More freely she breathes,
in its balminess, though
The forehead it kisses is
pallid with woe.
Through the long summer sunshine
the Cottage is stirred
By passers, who brokenly fling
them a word:
Such tidings of slaughter!
“The enemy cowers;”—
“He breaks!”—“He
is flying!”—“Manassas is ours!”
’Tis evening: and
Archie, alone on the grass,
Sits watching the fire-flies
gleam as they pass,
When sudden he rushes, too
eager to wait,—
“Mamma! there’s
an ambulance stops at the gate!”
Suspense then is past:
he is borne from the field,—
“God help me!...
God grant it be not on his shield!”
And Alice, her passionate
soul in her eyes,
And hope and fear winging
each quicken’d step, flies,—
Embraces, with frantical wildness,
the form
Of her husband, and finds
... it is living, and warm!
Ye, who by the couches of
languishing ones,
Have watched through the rising
and setting of suns,—
Who, silent, behind the close
curtain, withdrawn,
Scarce know that the current
of being sweeps on,—
To whom outer life is unreal,
untrue,
A world with whose moils ye
have nothing to do;
Who feel that the day, with
its multiform rounds,
Is full of discordant, impertinent
sounds,—
Who speak in low whispers,
and stealthily tread,
As if a faint footfall were
something to dread,—
Who find all existence,—its
gladness, its gloom,—
Enclosed by the walls of that
limited room,—
Ye only can measure the sleepless
unrest
That lies like a night-mare
on Alice’s breast.
Days come and days go, and
she watches the strife
So evenly balanced, ’twixt
death and ’twixt life;
Thanks God he still breathes,
as each evening takes wing,
And dares not to think what
the morrow may bring.
In the lone, ghostly midnight,
he raves as he lies,
With death’s ashen pallidness
dimming his eyes:
He shouts the sharp war-cry,—he
rallies his men,—
He is on the red field of
Manassas again.
“Now, courage, my comrades!
Keep steady! lie low!
Wait, like the couch’d
lion, to spring on your foe:
Ye’ll face without flinching
the cannons’ grim mouth,
For ye’re ’Knights
of the Horse-Shoe’—ye’re Sons
of the South!
There’s Jackson!—how
brave he rides! coursing at will,
Midst the prostrated lines
on the crest of the hill;
God keep him! for what will
we do if he falls?
Be ready, good fellows!—be
cool when he calls
To the charge: Oh! we’ll
beat them,—we’ll turn them,—and
then
We’ll ride them down
madly!—On! Onward! my men!”
The feverish frenzy o’erwearies
him soon,
And back on his pillows he
sinks in a swoon.
And sometimes, when Alice
is wetting his lip,
He turns from the draught,
and refuses to sip:
—“’Tis
sweet, pretty angel!—but yonder there lies
A famishing comrade, with
death in his eyes:
His need is far greater,...
Sir Philip, I think,—
Or was it Sir Philip?... go,
go!—let him drink!”
And oft, with a sort of bewildered
amaze,
On her face he would fasten
the wistfullest gaze:
—“You are
kind, but a hospital nurse cannot be
Like Alice,—my
tenderest Alice,—to me.
Oh! I know there’s
at Beechenbrook, many a tear,
As she asks all the day,—’Will
he never be here?’”
But Nature, kind healer! brings
sovereignest balm,
And strokes the wild pulses
with coolness and calm;
The conflict so equal, so
stubborn, is past,
And life gains the hardly-won
battle at last.
How sweet through the long
convalescence to lie,
And from the low window, gaze
out at the sky,
And float, as the zephyrs
so tranquilly do,
Aloft in the depths of ineffable
blue:—
In painless, delicious half
consciousness brood,—
No duties to cumber, no claims
to intrude,—
Receptive as childhood, from
trouble as free,
And feel it is bliss enough
simply, to be!
For Alice,—what
pencil can picture her joy,—
So perfect, so thankful, so
free from annoy,
As her lips press the lotus-bound
chalice, and drain
That exquisite blessedness
born out of pain!
Oh! not in her maidenhood,
blushing and sweet,
When Douglass first poured
out his love at her feet;
And not when a shrinking and
beautiful bride,
With worshipping fondness
she clung to his side;
And not in those holiest moments
of life,
When first she was held to
his heart, as his wife;
And never in motherhood’s
earliest bliss,
Had she tasted a happiness
rounded like this!
And Douglass, safe sheltered
from war’s rude alarms,
Finds Eden’s lost precincts
again in her arms:
He hears afar off, in the
distance, the roar
And the lash of the billows
that break on the shore
Of his isle of enchantment,—his
haven of rest,—
And rapturous languor steals
over his breast.
He bathes in the sunlight of Alice’s smiles; He wraps himself round with love’s magical wiles: His sweet iterations pall not on her ear,— “I love you—I love you!”—she never can hear That cadence too often; its musical roll Wakes ever an echoed reply in her soul.
—Do visions of
trial, of warning, of woe,
Loom dark in the future of
doubt? Do they know
They are hiving, of honied
remembrance, a store
To live on, when summer and
sunshine are o’er?
Do they feel that their island
of beauty at last
Must be rent by the tempest,—be
swept by the blast?
Do they dream that afar, on
the wild, wintry main,
Their love-freighted bark
must be driven again?
—Bless God for
the wisdom that curtains so tight
To-morrow’s enjoyments
or griefs from our sight!
Bless God for the ignorance,
darkness and doubt,
That girdle so kindly our
future about!
The crutches are brought,
and the invalid’s strength
Is able to measure the lawn’s
gravel’d length;
And under the beeches, once
more he reclines,
And hears the wind plaintively
moan through the pines;
His children around him, with
frolic and play,
Cheat autumn’s mild
listlessness out of the day;
And Alice, the sunshine all
flecking her book,
Reads low to the chime of
the murmuring brook.
But the world’s rushing
tide washes up to his feet,
And leaps the soft barriers
that bound his retreat;
The tumult of camps surges
out on the breeze,
And ever seems mocking his
Capuan ease.
He dare not be happy, or tranquil,
or blest,
While his soil by the feet
of invaders is prest:
What brooks it though still
he be pale as a ghost?
—If he languish
or fail, let him fail at his post.
The gums by the brook-side
are crimson and brown;
The leaves of the ash flicker
goldenly down;
The roses that trellis the
porches, have lost
Their brightness and bloom
at the touch of the frost;
The ozier-twined seat by the
beeches, no more
Looks tempting, and cheerful,
and sweet, as of yore;
The water glides darkly and
mournfully on,
As Alice sits watching it:—Douglass
has gone!
“I am weary and worn,—I
am hungry and chill,
And cuttingly strikes the
keen blast o’er the hill;
All day I have ridden through
snow and through sleet,
With nothing,—not
even a cracker to eat;
But now, as I rest by the
bivouac fire,
Whose blaze leaps up merrily,
higher and higher,
Impatient as Roland, who neighs
to be fed,—
For Caleb to bring me my bacon
and bread,—
I’ll warm my cold heart,
that is aching and lone,
By thinking of you, love,—my
Alice,—my own!
“I turn a deaf ear to
the scream of the wind,
I leave the rude camp and
the forest behind;
And Beechenbrook, wrapped
in its raiment of white,
Is tauntingly filling my vision
to-night.
I catch my sweet little ones’
innocent mirth,
I watch your dear face, as
you sit at the hearth;
And I know, by the tender
expression I see,
I know that my darling is
musing of me.
Does her thought dim the blaze?—Does
it shed through the room
A chilly, unseen, and yet
palpable gloom?
Ah! then we are equal! You
share all my pain,
And I halve your blessedness
with you again!
“Don’t think that
my hardships are bitter to bear;
Don’t think I repine
at the soldier’s rough fare;
If ever a thought so unworthy
steals on,
I look upon Ashby,—and
lo! it is gone!
Such chivalry, fortitude,
spirit and tone,
Make brighter, and stronger,
and prouder, my own.
Oh! Beverly, boy!—on
his white steed, I ween,
A princelier presence has
never been seen;
And as yonder he lies, from
the groups all apart,
I bow to him loyally,—bow
with my heart.
“What brave, buoyant
letters you write, sweet!—they ring
Through my soul like the blast
of a trumpet, and bring
Such a flame to my eye, such
a flush to my cheek,—
That often my hand will unconsciously
seek
The hilt of my sword as I
read,—and I feel
As the warrior does, when
he flashes the steel
In fiery circles, and shouts
in his might,
For the heroes behind him,
to follow its light!
True wife of a soldier!—If
doubt or dismay
Had ever, within me, one instant
held sway,
Your words wield a spell that
would bid them be gone,
Like bodiless ghosts at the
touch of the dawn.
“Could the veriest craven
that cowers and quails
Before the vast horde that
insults and assails
Our land and our liberties,—could
he to-night,
Sit here on the ice-girdled
log where I write,
And look on the hopeful, bright
brows of the men,
Who have toiled all the day
over mountain, through glen,—
Half-clothed and unfed,—would
he doubt?—would he dare,
In the face of such proof,
yield again to despair?
“The hum of their voices
comes laden with cheer,
As the wind wafts a musical
swell to my ear,—
Wild, clarion catches,—now
flute-like and low;
—Would you like
me to give you their Song of the Snow?
Halt!—the march
is over!
Day is almost
done;
Loose the cumbrous knapsack,
Drop the heavy
gun:
Chilled and wet and weary,
Wander to and
fro,
Seeking wood to kindle
Fires amidst the
snow.
Round the bright blaze gather,
Heed not sleet
nor cold,—
Ye are Spartan soldiers,
Stout and brave
and bold:
Never Xerxian army
Yet subdued a
foe,
Who but asked a blanket
On a bed of snow.
Shivering midst the darkness
Christian men
are found,
There devoutly kneeling
On the frozen
ground,—
Pleading for their country,
In its hour of
woe,—
For its soldiers marching
Shoeless through
the snow.
Lost in heavy slumbers,
Free from toil
and strife;
Dreaming of their dear ones,—
Home, and child,
and wife;
Tentless they are lying,
While the fires
burn low,—
Lying in their blankets,
Midst December’s
snow!
Come, Sophy, my blossom!
I’ve something to say
Will chase for a moment your
gambols away:
To-day as we climbed the steep
mountain-path o’er,
I noticed a bare-footed lad
in my corps;
“How comes it,”—I
asked,—“you look careful and bold,
How comes it you’re
marching, unshod, through the cold?”
“Ah, sir! I’m
a poor, lonely orphan, you see;
No mother, no friends that
are caring for me;
If I’m wounded, or captured,
or killed, in the war,
’Twill matter to nobody,
Colonel Dunbar.”
Now, Sophy!—your
needles, dear!—Knit him some socks,
And send the poor fellow a
pair in my box;
Then he’ll know,—and
his heart with the thought will be filled,—
There is one little
maiden will care if he’s killed.
The fire burns dimly, and
scattered around,
The men lie asleep on the
snow-covered ground;
But ere in my blanket I wrap
me to rest,
I hold you, my darling, close,—close,
to my breast:
God love you! God grant
you His comforting light!
I kiss you a thousand times
over!—Good night!
“To-morrow is Christmas!”—and
clapping his hands,
Little Archie in joyful expectancy
stands,
And watches the shadows, now
short and now tall,
That momently dance up and
down on the wall.
Drawn curtains of crimson
shut out the cold night,
And the parlor is pleasant
with odours and light;
The soft lamp suspended, its
mellowness throws
O’er cluster’d
geranium, jasmine and rose;
The sleeping canary hangs
caged midst the blooms,
A Sybarite slumberer steeped
in perfumes;
For Alice still clings to
her birds and her flowers,
Sweet tokens of kindlier,
happier hours.
“To-morrow is Christmas!—but
Beverly,—say,
Will it do to be glad when
Papa is away?”
And the face that is tricksy
and blythe as can be,
Tries vainly to temper its
shadowless glee.
“For you, pet,
I’m sure it is right to be glad;
’Tis a pitiful thing
to see little ones sad;
But for Sophy and me, who
are older, you know,—
We dare not be glad when we
look at the snow!
I shrink from this comfort,
this light and this heat,
This plenty to wear, and this
plenty to eat,
When the soldiers who fight
for us,—die for us,—lie,
With nothing around and above,
but the sky;
When their clothes are so
light, and the rations they deal,
Are only a morsel of bacon
and meal:
And how can I fold my thick
blankets around,
When I know that my father’s
asleep on the ground?
I’m ashamed to be happy,
or merry, or free,
As if war and its trials were
nothing to me:
Oh! I never can know
any frolic or fun,—
Any real, mad romps,—till
“But, brother, what
good would it do to refuse
The comforts and blessings
God gives us, or use
Them quite with indifference,
as much as to say,
We care not how soon they
are taken away!
I am sure I would give my
last blanket, and spread
My pretty, blue cloak, at
night, over my bed,—
(Mamma, you know, covers herself
with her shawl,
Since we’ve sent all
our blankets,)—but, then, it’s too
small!
Would Papa be less hungry
or cold, do you think,
If we had too little
to eat or to drink?
So I mean to be busy,—I
mean to be glad;
Mamma says there’s time
enough yet to be sad;
I’ll work for the soldiers,—I’ll
pray, and I’ll plan,
And just be as happy as ever
I can;
I’ve made the grey shirt,
and I’ve finished the socks:—
So come, let us help,—they
are packing the box.”
How grateful the task is to
Alice! her cares
Are quite put aside, and her
countenance wears
A look of enjoyment as eager,
as bright,
As Santa Claus brings little
dreamers to-night;
For Douglass away in his camp,
is to share
The daintiest cates that her
larder can spare.
The turkey, well seasoned,
and tenderly browned,
Is flanked by the spiciest
a la mode “round;”
The great “priestly
ham,” in its juiciest pride,
Is there,—with
the tenderest surloin beside;
Neat bottles, suggestive of
ketchups and wines,
And condiments racy, of various
kinds;
And firm rolls of butter as
yellow as gold,
And patties and biscuit most
rare to behold,
And sauces that richest of
odors betray,—
Are marshalled in most appetizing
array.
Then Beverly brings of his
nuts a full store,
And Archie has apples, a dozen
or more;
While Sophy, with gratified
housewifery, makes
Her present of spicy “Confederate
cakes.”
And then in a snug little
corner, there lies
A pacquet will brighten the
orphan boy’s eyes;
For Beverly claims it a pleasure
to use
His last cherish’d hoardings
in buying him shoes.
Sophy’s socks too are
there; and she catches afar—
“There’s somebody
cares for me, Colonel Dunbar!”
What subtlest of essences,
sovereign to cheer—
What countless, uncatalogu’d
tokens are here!
What lavender’d memories,
tenderly green,
Lie hidden, these grosser
of viands between!
What food for the heart-life,—unreckon’d,
untold—
What manna enclosed in its
chalice of gold!
What caskets of sweets that
Love only unlocks,—
What mysteries Douglass will
find in the box!
The lull of the Winter is
over; and Spring
Comes back, as delicious and
buoyant a thing,
As airy, and fairy, and lightsome,
and bland,
As if not a sorrow was dark’ning
the land;—
So little has Nature of passion
or part
In the woes and the throes
of humanity’s heart.
The wild tide of battle runs
red,—dashes high,
And blots out the splendour
of earth and of sky;
The blue air is heavy, and
sulph’rous, and dun,
And the breeze on its wings
bears the boom of the gun.
In faster and fiercer and
deadlier shocks,
The thunderous billows are
hurled on the rocks;
And our Valley becomes, amid
Spring’s softest breath,
The valley, alas! of the shadow
of death.
The crash of the onset,—the
plunge and the roll,
Reach down to the depth of
each patriot’s soul;
It quivers—for
since it is human, it must;
But never a tremor of doubt
or distrust,
Once blanches the cheek, or
is wrung from the mouth,
Or lurks in the eye of the
sons of the South.
What need for dismay?
Let the live surges roar,
And leap in their fury, our
fastnesses o’er,
And threaten our beautiful
Valley to fill
With rapine and ruin more
terrible still:
What fear we?—See
Jackson! his sword in his hand,
Like the stern rocks around
him, immovable stand,—
The wisdom, the skill and
the strength that he boasts,
Sought ever from him who is
Leader of Hosts:
—He speaks in the
name of his God:—lo! the tide,—
The red sea of battle, is
seen to divide;
The pathway of victory cleaves
the dark flood;—
And the foe is o’erwhelmed
in a deluge of blood!
The spirit of Alice no longer
is bowed
By the troubles, and tumults,
and terrors, that crowd
So closely around her:—the
willow’s lithe form
Bends meekly to meet the wild
rush of the storm.
Yet pale as Cassandra, unconscious
of joy,
With visions of Greeks at
the gates of her Troy,
All day she has waited and
watched on the lawn,
Till the purple and gold of
the sunset are gone;
For the battle draws near
her:—few leagues intervene
Her home and that Valley of
slaughter, between.
The tidings and rumors come
thick and come fast,
As riders fly hotly and breathlessly
past;
They tell of the onslaught,—the
headlong attack
Of the foe with a quadruple
force at his back:
They boast how they hurl themselves,—shiver
and fall
Before their stout rampart,
the valiant “Stonewall.”
At length, with the gradual
fading of day,—
The tokens of battle are floated
away:
The booming no longer makes
sullen the air,
And the silence of night seems
as holy as prayer.
Gray shadows still linger
the beeches among,
And scarce has the earliest
matin been sung,
Ere Alice with Beverly pale
at her side,
Yet firm as his mother, is
ready to ride.
With sympathy, womanly, tender,
divine,—
With lint and with bandage,
with bread and with wine,—
She hastes to the battle-field,
eager to bear
Relief to the wounded and
perishing there:
To breathe, like an angel
of mercy, the breath
Of peace over brows that are
fainting in death.
She dares not to stir with
a question, her woe,
One word,—and the
bitter-brimm’d heart would o’erflow:
But speechless, and moveless,
and stony of eye,
Scarce conscious of aught
in the earth or the sky,
In a swoon of the heart, all
her senses have reeled,—
But she prays for endurance,—for
here is the field.
The flight and pursuit, so
harassing, so hot,
Have drifted all combatants
far from the spot:
And through the sparse woodlands,
and over the plain,
Lie gorily scattered, the
wounded and slain.
Oh! the sickness,—the
shudder,—the quailing of fear,
As it leaps to her lips,—“What
if Douglass be here!”
Yet she frames not a question;
her spirit can bear
Oh! anything,—all
things, but hopeless despair:
Does her darling lie stretched
on the slope of yon hill?
Let her doubt—let
her hug the suspense, if she will!
She watches each ambulance-burden
with dread;
She loots in the faces of
dying and dead:
And hour after hour, with
steady control,
She bends to her task all
the strength of her soul;
She comforts the wounded with
pity’s sweet care,
And the spirit that’s
passing, she speeds with her prayer.
She starts as she hears, from
her stout-hearted boy,
A wild exclamation, half doubt
and half joy:—
“Oh! Surgeon!—some
brandy! he’s fainting!—Ah! now
The colour comes back to his
cheek and his brow:—
He breathes again—speaks
again—listen!—you are
‘An orderly’—is
it?—’of Colonel Dunbar?’
‘He fought like a lion!’
(I knew it!) and passed
Untouched through the battle,
‘unhurt to the last?’
—My father is safe,—mother!—safe!—what
a joy!
And here is Macpherson,—our
barefooted boy!”
Poor Alice!—her
grief has been tearless and dumb,
But the pressure once lifted,
her senses succumb:
Too quick the revulsion,—too
glad the surprise,—
The mists of unconsciousness
curtain her eyes:
’Tis only a moment they
suffer eclipse,
And words of thanksgiving
soon thrill on her lips.
To Beechenbrook’s quiet,
with tenderest care,
They hasten the wounded, wan
soldier to bear;
And never hung mother more
patiently o’er
The couch of the child, her
own bosom that bore,
Than Alice above the lone
orphan, who lay
Submissively breathing his
spirit away.
He knows that existence is
ebbing; his brain
Is lucid and calm, in the
pauses of pain;
But his round boyish cheek
with no weeping is wet,
And his smile is not touched
with a shade of regret.
No murmur is uttered—no
lingering sigh
Escapes him;—so
young,—yet so willing to die!
His garment of flesh he has
worn undefiled,
His faith is the beautiful
faith of a child:
He knows that the Crucified
hung on the tree,
That the pathway to bliss
might be open and free:
He believes that the cup has
been drained,—he can find
Not a drop of the wrath that
had filled it,—behind.
If ever a doubt or misgiving
assails,
His finger he puts on the
print of the nails;
If sometimes there springs
an emotion of fear,
He lays his cold hand on the
mark of the spear!
He thinks of his darling,
dead mother;—the light
Of the Heavenly City falls
full on his sight:
And under the rows of the
palms, by the brim
Of the river—he
knows she is waiting for him.
But the present comes back;—and
on Alice’s ear,
Fall whispers like these,
as she pauses to hear:
“Only a private;—and
who will care
When I may pass
away,—
Or how, or why I perish, or
where
I mix with the
common clay?
They will fill my empty place
again,
With another as
bold and brave;
And they’ll blot me
out, ere the Autumn rain
Has freshened
my nameless grave.
Only a private:—it
matters not,
That I did my
duty well;
That all through a score of
battles I fought,
And then, like
a soldier, fell:
The country I died for,—never
will heed
My unrequited
claim;
And history cannot record
the deed,
For she never
has heard my name.
Only a private;—and
yet I know,
When I heard the
rallying call,
I was one of the very first
to go,
And ... I’m
one of the many who fall:
But, as here I lie, it is
sweet to feel,
That my honor’s
without a stain;—
That I only fought for my
Country’s weal,
And not for glory
or gain.
Only a private;—yet
He who reads
Through the guises
of the heart,
Looks not at the splendour
of the deeds,
But the way we
do our part;
And when He shall take us
by the hand,
And our small
service own,
There’ll a glorious
band of privates stand
As victors around
the throne!”
The breath of the morning
is heavy and chill,
And gloomily lower the mists
on the hill:
The winds through the beeches
are shivering low,
With a plaintive and sad miserere
of woe:
A quiet is over the Cottage,—a
dread
Clouds the children’s
sweet faces,—Macpherson is dead!
’Tis Autumn,—and
Nature the forest has hung
With arras more gorgeous than
ever was flung
From Gobelin looms,—all
so varied, so rare,
As never the princeliest palaces
were.
Soft curtains of haze the
far mountains enfold,
Whose warp is of purple, whose
woof is of gold,
And the sky bends as peacefully,
purely above,
As if earth breathed an atmosphere
only of love.
But thick as white asters
in Autumn, are found
The tents all bestrewing the
carpeted ground;
The din of a camp, with its
stir and its strife,
Its motley and strange, multitudinous
life,
Floats upward along the brown
slopes, till it fills
The echoing hollows afar in
the hills.
’Tis the twilight of
Sabbath,—and sweet through the air,
Swells the blast of the bugle,
that summons to prayer:
The signal is answered, and
soon in the glen
Sits Colonel Dunbar in the
midst of his men.
The Chaplain advances with
reverent face,
Where lies a felled oak, he
has chosen his place;
On the stump of an ash-tree
the Bible he lays,
And they bow on the grass,
as he solemnly prays.
Underneath thine open sky,
Father, as we
bend the knee,
May we feel thy presence nigh,
—Nothing
’twixt our souls and thee!
We are weary,—cares
and woes
Lay their weight
on every breast,
And each heart before thee
knows,
That it sighs
for inward rest.
Thou canst lift this weight
away,
Thou canst bid
these sighings cease;
Thou canst walk these waves
and say
To their restless
tossings—“Peace!”
We are tempted;—snares
abound,—
Sin its treacherous
meshes weaves;
And temptations strew us round,
Thicker than the
Autumn leaves.
Midst these perils, mark our
path,
Thou who art ‘the
life, the way;’
Rend each fatal wile that
hath
Power to lead
our souls astray.
Prince of Peace! we follow
Thee!
Plant thy banner
in our sight;
Let thy shadowy legions be
Guards around
our tents to-night.”
Through the aisles of the
forest, far-stretching and dim
As a cloister’d Cathedral,
the notes of a hymn
Float tenderly upward,—now
soft and now clear,
As if twilight had silenced
its breathing to hear;
Now swelling, a lofty, triumphant
refrain,—
Now sobbing itself into sadness
again.
The Bible is opened, and stillness
profound
Broods over the listeners
scattered around;
And warning, and comfort,
and blessing, and balm,
Distil from the beautiful
words of the Psalm.
Then simply and earnestly
pleading,—his face
Lit up with persuasive and
eloquent grace,
The Chaplain pours forth,
from the warmth of his heart,
His words of entreaty and
truth, ere they part.
“I see before me valiant
men,
With courage high
and true,
Who fight as only heroes fight,
And die, as heroes
do.
Your serried ranks have never
quailed
Before the battle-shock,
Whose maddest fury beats and
breaks
Like foam against
the rock.
Ye’ve borne the deadly
brunt of war,
Through storm,
and cold, and heat,
Yet never have ye turned your
backs
Nor fled before
defeat.
Behind you lie your cheerful
homes,
And all of sweet
or fair,—
The only remnants earth has
left
Of Eden-life,
are there.
Ye know that many a once bright
cheek
Consuming care,
makes wan;
Ye know the old, dear happiness
That blest your
hearths,—is gone.
Ye see your comrades smitten
down,—
The young, the
good, the brave,—
Ye feel, the turf ye tread
to-day,
May be to-morrow’s
grave.
Yet not a murmur meets the
ear,
Nor discontent
has sway,
And not a sullen brow is seen,
Through all the
camp to-day.
No Greek, in Greece’s
palmiest days,
His javelin ever
threw,
Impelled by more heroic zeal,
Or nobler aim
than you.
No mailed warrior ever bore
Aloft his shining
lance,
More proudly through the tales
that fire
The page of old
romance.
Oh! soldiers!—well
ye bear your part;
The world awards
its praise:
Be sure,—this grandest
tourney o’er,—
’Twill crown
you with its bays!
But there’s sublimer
work than even
To free your native
sod;
—Ye may be loyal
to your land,
Yet traitors to
your God!
No Moslem heaven for him who
falls,
A bribed requital
doles;
And while ye save your country,—ye,
Alas! may lose
your souls!
No glorious deeds can urge
their claim,—
No merits, entrance
win,—
The pierced hand of Christ
alone,
Must freely let
you in.
Oh! sirs!—there
lurks a fiercer foe,
Than this that
treads your soil,
Who springs from unseen ambuscades,
To drag you as
his spoil.
He drugs the heedless conscience,
till,
No wary watch
it keeps,
And parleys with the treacherous
heart,
While fast the
warder sleeps.
He captive leads the wavering
will
With specious
words, and fair,
And enters the beleaguered
soul,
And rules, a conqueror
there.
Will ye who fling defiance
forth,
Against a temporal
foe,
And rather die, than stoop
to wear
The chains that
gall you so,—
Will ye succumb beneath a
power,
That grasps at
full control,
And binds its helpless victims
down
In servitude of
soul?
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!
“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!
“Why harrow your heart
with the grief and the pain?
Why paint you the picture
that’s scorching my brain?
Why speak of the night when
I stood on the lawn,
And watched the last flame
die away in the dawn?
’Tis over,—that
vision of terror,—of woe!
Its horrors I would not recall;—let
them go!
I am calm when I think what
I suffered them for;
I grudge not the quota I
pay to the war!
“But, Douglass!—deep
down in the core of my heart,
There’s a throbbing,
an aching, that will not depart;
For memory mourns, with a
wail of despair,
The loss of her treasures,—the
subtle, the rare,
Precious things over which
she delighted to pore,
Which nothing,—ah!
nothing, can ever restore!
“The rose-covered porch,
where I sat as your bride—
The hearth, where at twilight
I leaned at your side—
The low-cushioned window-seat,
where I would lie,
With my head on your knee,
and look out on the sky:—
The chamber all holy with
love and with prayer,
The motherhood memories clustering
there—
The vines that your
hand has delighted to train,
The trees that you
planted;—Oh! never again
Can love build us up such
a bower of bliss;
Oh! never can home be as hallow’d
as this!
“Thank God! there’s
a dwelling not builded with hands,
Whose pearly foundation, immovable
stands;
There struggles, alarms, and
disquietudes cease,
And the blissfulest balm of
the spirit is—peace!
Small trial ’twill seem
when our perils are past,
And we enter the house of
our Father at last,—
Light trouble, that here,
in the night of our stay,
The blast swept our wilderness
lodging away!
“The children—dear hearts!—it is touching to see My Beverly’s beautiful kindness to me; So buoyant his mein—so heroic—resigned— The boy has the soul of his father, I find! Not a childish complaint or regret have I heard,— Not even from Archie, a petulant word: Once only—a tear moistened Sophy’s bright cheek: ’Papa has no home now!’—’twas all she could speak.
“A stranger I wander
midst strangers; and yet
I never,—no, not
for a moment forget
That my heart has a home,—just
as real, as true,
And as warm as if Beechenbrook
sheltered me too.
God grant that this refuge
from sorrow and pain—
This blessedest haven of peace,
may remain!
And, then, though disaster,
still sharper, befall,
I think I can patiently bear
with it all:
For the rarest, most exquisite
bliss of my life
Is wrapped in a word, Douglass
... I am your wife!”
When fierce and fast-thronging
calamities rush
Resistless as destiny o’er
us, and crush
The life from the quivering
heart till we feel
Like the victim whose body
is broke on the wheel—
When we think we have touched
the far limit at last,
—One throe, and
the point of endurance is passed—
When we shivering hang on
the verge of despair—
There still is capacity left
us to bear.
The storm of the winter, the
smile of the Spring,
No respite, no pause, and
no hopefulness bring;
The demon of carnage still
breathes his hot breath,
And fiercely goes forward
the harvest of death.
Days painfully drag their
slow burden along;
And the pulse that is beating
so steady and strong,
Stands still, as there comes,
from the echoing shore
Of the winding and clear Rappahannock,
the roar
Of conflict so fell, that
the silvery flood
Runs purple and rapid and
ghastly with blood.
—Grand army of
martyrs!—though victory waves
Them onward, her march must
be over their graves:
They feel it—they
know it,—yet steadier each
Close phalanx moves into the
desperate breach:
Their step does not falter—their
faith does not yield,—
For yonder, supreme o’er
the fiercely-fought field,
Erect in his leonine grandeur,
they see
The proud and magnificent
calmness of LEE!
’Tis morn—but
the night has brought Alice no rest:
The roof seems to press like
a weight on her breast;
And she wanders forth, wearily
lifting her eye,
To seek for relief ’neath
the calm of the sky.
The air of the forest is spicy
and sweet,
And dreamily babbles a brook
at her feet;
Her children are ’round
her, and sunshine and flowers,
Try vainly to banish the gloom
of the hours.
With a volume she fain her
wild thoughts would assuage,
But her vision can trace not
a line on the page,
And the poet’s dear
strains, once so soft to her ear,
Have lost all their mystical
power to cheer.
The evening approaches—the
pressure—the woe
Grows drearer and heavier,—yet
she must go,
And stifle between the dead
walls, as she may,
The heart that scarce breathed
in the free, open day.
She reaches the dwelling that
serves as her home;
A horseman awaits at the entrance;—the
foam
Is flecking the sides of his
fast-ridden steed,
Who pants, over-worn with
exhaustion and speed;
And Alice for support to Beverly
clings,
As the soldier delivers the
letter he brings.
Her ashy lips move, but the
words do not come,
And she stands in her whiteness,
bewildered and dumb:
She turns to the letter with
hopeless appeal,
But her fingers are helpless
to loosen the seal:
She lifts her dim eyes with
a look of despair,—
Her hands for a moment are
folded in prayer;
The strength she has sought
is vouchsafed in her need:
—“I think
I can bear it now, Beverly ... read.”
The boy, with the resolute
nerve of a man,
And a voice which he holds
as serene as he can,
Takes quietly from her the
letter, and reads:—
“Dear Madam,—My
heart in its sympathy bleeds
For the pain that my tidings
must bear you: may God
Most tenderly comfort you,
under His rod!
“This morning, at daybreak,
a terrible charge
Was made on the enemy’s
centre: such large
And fresh reinforcements were
held at his back,
He stoutly and stubbornly
met the attack.
“Our cavalry bore themselves
splendidly:—far
In front of his line galloped
Colonel Dunbar;
Erect in his stirrups,—his
sword flashing high,
And the look of a conqueror
kindling his eye,
His silvery voice rang aloft
through the roar
Of the musketry poured from
the opposite shore:
—’Remember
the Valley!—remember your wives!
And on to your duty, boys!—on—with
your lives!’
“He turned, and he paused,
as he uttered the call—
Then reeled in his seat, and
fell,—pierced by a ball.
“He lives and he breathes
yet:—the surgeons declare,
That the balance is trembling
’twixt hope and despair.
In his blanket he lies, on
the hospital floor,—
So calm, you might deem all
his agony o’er;
And here, as I write, on his
face I can see
An expression whose radiance
is startling to me.
His faith is sublime:—he
relinquishes life,
And craves but one blessing,—to
look on his wife!”
The Chaplain’s recital
is ended:—no word
From Alice’s white,
breathless lips has been heard;
Till, rousing herself from
her passionless woe,
She simply and quietly says—“I
will go.”
There are moments of anguish
so deadly, so deep—
That numbness seems over the
senses to creep,
With interposition, whose
timely relief,
Is an anodyne-draught to the
madness of grief.
Such mercy is meted to Alice;—her
eye
That sees as it saw not, is
vacant and dry:
The billows’ wild fury
sweeps over her soul,
And she bends to the rush
with a passive control.
Through the dusk of the night—through
the glare of the day,
She urges, unconscious, her
desolate way:
One image is ever her vision
before,
—That blanketed
form on the hospital floor!
Her journey is ended; and
yonder she sees
The spot where he lies,
looming white through the trees:
Her torpor dissolves with
a shuddering start,
And a terrible agony clutches
her heart.
The Chaplain advances to meet
her:—he draws
Her silently onward;—no
question—no pause—
Her finger she lays on her
lip;—if she spake,
She knows that the spell that
upholds her, would break.
She has strength to go forward;
they enter the door,—
And there, on the crowded
and blood-tainted floor,
Close wrapped in his blanket,
lies Douglass:—his brow
Wore never a look so seraphic
as now!
She stretches her arms the
dear form to enfold,—
God help her!..., she shrieks
..., it is silent and cold!
“Break, my heart, and ease this pain—
Cease to throb, thou tortured brain;
Let me die,—since he is slain,
—Slain in battle!
Blessed brow, that loved to rest
Its dear whiteness on my breast—
Gory was the grass it prest,
—Slain in battle!
Oh! that still and stately form—
Never more will it be warm;
Chilled beneath that iron storm,
—Slain in battle!
Not a pillow for his head—
Not a hand to smooth his bed—
Not one tender parting said,
—Slain in battle!
Straightway from that bloody sod,
Where the trampling horsemen trod—
Lifted to the arms of God;
—Slain in battle!
Not my love to come between,
With its interposing screen—
Naught of earth to intervene;
—Slain in battle!
Snatched the purple billows o’er,
Through the fiendish rage and roar,
To the far and peaceful shore;
—Slain in battle!
Nunc demitte—thus I pray—
What else left for me to say,
Since my life is reft away?
—Slain in battle!
Let me die, oh! God!—the dart
Rankles deep within my heart,—
Hope, and joy, and peace, depart;
—Slain in battle!”
’Tis thus through her days and her nights of despair,
Her months of bereavement so bitter to bear,
That Alice moans ever. Ah! little they know,
Who look on that brow, still and white as the snow,
Who watch—but in vain—for the sigh or the tear,
That only comes thick when no mortal is near,—
Who whisper—“How gently she bends to the rod!”
Because all her heart-break is kept for her God,—
Ah! little they know of the tempests that roll
Their desolate floods through the depths of her soul!
Afar in our sunshiny homes
on the shore,
We heed not how wildly the
billows may roar;
We smile at our firesides,
happy and free,
While the rich-freighted argosy
founders at sea!
By her pride in the soil that
has given her birth—
By her tenderest memories
garnered on earth—
By the legacy blood-bought
and precious, which she
Would leave to her children—the
right to be free,—
By the altar where once rose
the hymn and the prayer;
By the home that lies scarred
in its solitude there,—
By the pangs she has suffered,—the
ills she has borne,—
By the desolate exile through
which she must mourn,—
By the struggles that hallow
this fair Southern sod,
By the vows she has breathed
in the ear of her God,—
By the blood of the heart
that she worshipped,—the life
That enfolded her own; by
her love, as his wife;
By his death on the battle-field,
gallantly brave,—
By the shadow that ever will
wrap her—his grave—
By the faith she reposes,
oh! Father! in Thee,
She claims that her glorious
South MUST be free!
VIRGINIA.
A SONNET.
Grandly thou fillest the world’s
eye to-day,
My proud Virginia!
When the gage was thrown—
The deadly gage
of battle—thou, alone,
Strong in thy self-control,
didst stoop to lay
The olive-branch thereon,
and calmly pray
We might have
peace, the rather. When the foe
Turned scornfully
upon thee,—bade thee go,
And whistled up his war-hounds,
then—the way
Of duty full before
thee,—thou didst spring
Into the centre
of the martial ring—
Thy brave blood boiling, and
thy glorious eye,
Shot with heroic
fire, and swear to claim
Sublimest victory
in God’s own name,—
Or, wrapped in robes of martyrdom,—to
die!
A SONNET.
Thank God for such a Hero!—Fearless
hold
His diamond character
beneath the sun,
And brighter scintillations,
one by one,
Come flashing from it.
Never knight of old
Wore on serener brow, so calm,
yet bold,
Diviner courage:
never martyr knew
Trust more sublime,—nor
patriot, zeal more true,—
Nor saint, self-abnegation
of a mould
Touched with profounder
beauty. All the rare,
Clear, starry points of light,
that gave his soul
Such lambent lustre,
owned but one sole aim,—
Not for himself,
nor yet his country’s fame,
These glories shone:
he kept the clustered whole
A jewel for the
crown that Christ shall wear!
Heard ye that thrilling word—
Accent of dread—
Flash like a thunderbolt,
Bowing each head—
Crash through the battle dun,
Over the booming gun—
“Ashby, our bravest
one,—
Ashby is dead!”
Saw ye the veterans—
Hearts that had
known
Never a quail of fear,
Never a groan—
Sob ’mid the fight they
win,
—Tears their stern
eyes within,—
“Ashby, our Paladin,
Ashby is gone!”
Dash,—dash the
tear away—
Crush down the
pain!
“Dulce et decus,”
be
Fittest refrain!
Why should the dreary pall
Round him be flung at all?
Did not our hero fall
Gallantly slain?
Catch the last word of cheer
Dropt from his
tongue;
Over the volley’s din,
Loud be it rung—
“Follow me! follow
me!”—
Soldier, oh! could there be
Paean or dirge for thee,
Loftier sung!
Bold as the Lion-heart,
Dauntless and
brave;
Knightly as knightliest
Bayard could crave;
Sweet with all Sidney’s
grace—
Tender as Hampden’s
face—
Who—who shall fill
the space
Void by his grave?
’Tis not one
broken heart,
Wild with dismay;
Crazed with her agony,
Weeps o’er
his clay:
Ah! from a thousand eyes
Flow the pure tears that rise;
Widowed Virginia lies
Stricken to-day!
Yet—though that
thrilling word—
Accent of dread—
Falls like a thunderbolt,
Bowing each head—
Heroes! be battle done
Bravelier every one,
Nerved by the thought alone—
Ashby is dead!
STONEWALL JACKSON’S GRAVE.[A]
A simple, sodded mound of
earth,
Without a line
above it;
With only daily votive flowers
To prove that
any love it:
The token flag that silently
Each breeze’s
visit numbers,
Alone keeps martial ward above
The hero’s
dreamless slumbers.
No name?—no record?
Ask the world;
The world has
read his story—
If all its annals can unfold
A prouder tale
of glory:—
If ever merely human life
Hath taught diviner
moral,—
If ever round a worthier brow
Was twined a purer
laurel!
A twelvemonth only, since
his sword
Went flashing
through the battle—
A twelvemonth only, since
his ear
Heard war’s
last deadly rattle—
And yet, have countless pilgrim-feet
The pilgrim’s
guerdon paid him,
And weeping women come to
see
The place where
they have laid him.
Contending armies bring, in
turn,
Their meed of
praise or honor,
And Pallas here has paused
to bind
The cypress wreath
upon her:
It seems a holy sepulchre,
Whose sanctities
can waken
Alike the love of friend or
foe,—
Of Christian or
of pagan.
THEY come to own his high
emprise,
Who fled in frantic
masses,
Before the glittering bayonet
That triumphed
at Manassas:
Who witnessed Kernstown’s
fearful odds,
As on their ranks
he thundered,
Defiant as the storied Greek,
Amid his brave
three hundred!
They well recall the tiger
spring,
The wise retreat,
the rally,
The tireless march, the fierce
pursuit,
Through many a
mountain valley:
Cross Keys unlock new paths
to fame,
And Port Republic’s
story
Wrests from his ever-vanquish’d
foes,
Strange tributes
to his glory.
Cold Harbor rises to their
view,—
The Cedars’
gloom is o’er them;
Antietam’s rough and
rugged heights,
Stretch mockingly
before them:
The lurid flames of Fredericksburg
Right grimly they
remember,
That lit the frozen night’s
retreat,
That wintry-wild
December!
The largess of their praise
is flung
With bounty, rare
and regal;
—Is it because
the vulture fears
No longer the
dead eagle?
Nay, rather far accept it
thus,—
An homage true
and tender,
As soldier unto soldier’s
worth,—
As brave to brave
will render,
But who shall weigh the wordless
grief
That leaves in
tears its traces,
As round their leader crowd
again,
The bronzed and
veteran faces!
The “Old Brigade”
he loved so well—
The mountain men,
who bound him
With bays of their own winning,
ere
A tardier fame
had crowned him;
The legions who had seen his
glance
Across the carnage
flashing,
And thrilled to catch his
ringing “charge”
Above the volley
crashing;—
Who oft had watched the lifted
hand,
The inward trust
betraying,
And felt their courage grow
sublime,
While they beheld
him praying!
Good knights and true as ever
drew
Their swords with
knightly Roland;
Or died at Sobieski’s
side,
For love of martyr’d
Poland;
Or knelt with Cromwell’s
Ironsides;
Or sang with brave
Gustavus;
Or on the plain of Austerlitz,
Breathed out their
dying AVES!
Rare fame! rare name!—If
chanted praise,
With all the world
to listen,—
If pride that swells a nation’s
soul,—
If foemen’s
tears that glisten,—
If pilgrims’ shrining
love,—if grief
Which nought may
soothe or sever,—
If THESE can consecrate,—this
spot
Is sacred ground
forever!
[A] In the month of June the singular spectacle was presented at Lexington, Va., of two hostile armies, in turn, reverently visiting Jackson’s grave.
A CHRISTMAS LAY.
Ah! the happy Christmas times!
Times we all remember;—
Times that flung a ruddy glow
O’er the
gray December;—
Will they never come again,
With their song
and story?
Never wear a remnant more
Of their olden
glory?
Must the little children miss
Still the festal
token?
Must their realm of young
romance
All be marred
and broken?
Must the mother promise on,
While her smiles
dissemble,
And she speaks right quietly,
Lest her voice
should tremble:—
“Darlings! wait till
father comes—
Wait—and
we’ll discover
Never were such Christmas
times,
When the war is
over!”
Underneath the midnight sky,
Bright with starry
beauty,
Sad, the shivering sentinel
Treads his round
of duty:
For his thoughts are far away,
Far from strife
and battle,
As he listens dreamingly,
To his baby’s
prattle;—
As he clasps his sobbing wife,
Wild with sudden
gladness,
Kisses all her tears away—
Chides her looks
of sadness—
Talks of Christmas nights
to come,—
And his step grows
lighter,
Whispering, while his stiffening
hand
Grasps his musket
tighter:—
“Patience, love!—keep
heart! keep hope!
To your weary
rover,
What a home our home will
be,
When the war is
over!”
By the twilight Christmas
fire,
All her senses
laden
With a weight of tenderness,
Sits the musing
maiden:
From the parlor’s cheerful
blaze,
Far her visions
wander,
To the white tent gleaming
bright,
On the hill-side
yonder.
Buoyant in her brave, young
love,
Flushed with patriot
honour,
No misgiving, no fond fear,
Flings its shade
upon her.
Though no mortal soul can
know
Half the love
she bears him,
Proudly, for her country’s
sake,
From her heart
she spares him.
—God be thanked!—she
does not dream,
That her gallant
lover
Will be in a soldier’s
grave,
When the war is
over!
’Midst the turmoil and
the strife
Of the war-tide’s
rushing,
Every heart its separate woe
In its depths
is hushing.
Who has time for tears, when
blood
All the land is
steeping?
—In our poverty
we grudge
Even the waste
of weeping!
But when quiet comes again,
And the bands,
long broken,
Gather round the hearth, and
breathe
Names now seldom
spoken—
Then we’ll miss
the precious links—
Mourn the empty
places—
Read the hopeless “Nevermore,”
In each other’s
faces!
—Oh! what aching,
anguish’d hearts
O’er lone
graves will hover,
With a new, fresh sense of
pain,
When the war is
over!
Stern endurance, bitterer
still,
Sharp with self-denial,
Fraught with loftier sacrifice,
Fuller far of
trial—
Strews our flinty path of
thorns—
Marks our bloody
story—
Fits us for the victor’s
palm—
Weaves our robe
of glory!
Shall we faint with God above,
And His strong
arm under—
And the cold world gazing
on,
In a maze of wonder?
No! with more resistless march,
More resolved
endeavor,
Press we onward—struggle
still,
Fight and win
forever!
—Holy peace will
heal all ills,
Joy all losses
cover,
Raptures rend our Southern
skies,
When the war is
over!
VIRGINIA CAPTA.
APRIL 9TH, 1865.
Unconquered captive!—close
thine eye,
And draw the ashen
sackcloth o’er,
And in thy speechless
woe deplore
The fate that would not let
thee die!
The arm that wore the shield,
strip bare;
The hand that
held the martial rein,
And hurled the
spear on many a plain—
Stretch—till they
clasp the shackles there!
The foot that once could crush
the crown,
Must drag the
fetters, till it bleed
Beneath their
weight:—thou dost not need
It now, to tread the tyrant
down.
Thou thought’st him
vanquish’d—boastful trust!
—His
lance, in twain—his sword, a wreck—
But with his heel
upon thy neck,
He holds thee prostrate
in the dust!
Bend though thou must, beneath
his will,
Let not one abject
moan have place;
But with majestic,
silent grace,
Maintain thy regal bearing
still.
Look back through all thy
storied past,
And sit erect
in conscious pride:—
No grander heroes
ever died—
No sterner, battled to the
last!
Weep, if thou wilt, with proud,
sad mein,
Thy blasted hopes—thy
peace undone,—
Yet brave, live
on,—nor seek to shun
Thy fate, like Egypt’s
conquer’d Queen.
Though forced a captive’s
place to fill,
In the triumphal
train,—yet there,
Superbly, like
Zenobia, wear
Thy chains,—Virginia
Victrix still!