108.

A MOTHER'S ANSWER.

And murmured "Dear mother!" so low, I bit my pale lips lest they'd cowardly speak “O, my darling, I can't let you go!”

This morning I blessed him; I stifled my pain;
I bade him be true to his trust;

To stand by the flag till his country again
Should raise its proud head from the dust.
I knew by the light in his beautiful eyes,
By his face with true courage aglow,
He'd fight to the last. I choked back my sighs,
While I kissed him, and let him go.

But oh, sitting here, this desolate day,

Still there comes no feeling of pride;

But One knows my need, and to Him will I pray, I can trust Him whatever betide.

And if he shall fall, — (O, faint heart, be still!)
I know He will soften the blow,

And I yet may feel a patriot's thrill
That I kissed him, and let him go.

To autumn's cheering air;

The teeming orchard and the waving field
Fruition's glory wear.

More clear against the flushed horizon wall,
Stand forth each rock and tree;

More near the cricket's note, the plover's call,
More crystalline the sea.

The sunshine chastened, like a mother's gaze,
The meadow's vagrant balm ;
The purple leaf and amber-tinted maize
Reprove us while they calm;

For on the landscape's brightly pensive face,
War's angry shadows lie;

His ruddy stains upon the woods we trace,
And in the crimson sky.

No more we bask in Earth's contented smile,
But sternly muse apart;

110

THE BATTLE SUMMER.

Vainly her charms the patriot's soul beguile,
Or woo the orphan's heart.

Yon keen-eyed stars with mute reproaches brand
The lapse from faith and law,
No more harmonious emblems of a land
Ensphered in love and awe.

As cradled in the noontide's warm embrace,
And bathed in dew and rain,

The herbage freshened, and in billowy grace
Wide surged the ripening grain;

And the wild rose and clover's honeyed cell
Exhaled their peaceful breath,

On the soft air broke Treason's fiendish yell, -
The harbinger of death!

Nor to the camp alone his summons came,
To blast the glowing day,

But heavenward bore upon the wings of flame

Our poet's mate away;

*

And set his seal upon the statesman's lips
On which a nation hung; †

And rapt the noblest life in cold eclipse,
By woman lived or sung. ‡

Mrs. Longfellow.

† Cavour.

Mrs. Browning.

A RAINY DAY IN CAMP.

111

How shrinks the heart from Nature's festal noon,

As shrink the withered leaves,

In the wan-light of Sorrow's harvest-moon
To glean her blighted sheaves.
Newport, R. I., September, 1861.

A RAINY DAY IN CAMP.

BY MRS. ROBERT SHAW HOWLAND.

IT'S

T'S a cheerless, lonesome evening,
When the soaking, sodden ground

Will not echo to the footfall

Of the sentinel's dull round.

God's blue star-spangled banner
To-night is not unfurled,

Surely He has not deserted
This weary, warring world.

I peer into the darkness,

And the crowding fancies come;
The night-wind, blowing Northward
Carries all my heart toward home.

For I 'listed in this army

Not exactly to my mind;

112

A RAINY DAY IN CAMP.

But my country called for helpers,
And I could n't stay behind.

So, I've had a sight of drilling,
And have roughed it many ways,
And Death has nearly had me;
Yet I think the service pays.

It's a blessed sort of feeling,
Whether you live or die;
You helped your country in her need,
And fought right loyally.

But I can't help thinking, sometimes,
When a wet day's leisure comes,

That I hear the old home voices
Talking louder than the drums,

And the far, familiar faces
Peep in at the tent door,
And the little children's footsteps
Go pit-pat on the floor,

I can't help thinking, somehow,
Of all the parson reads
About that other Soldier-life

Which every true man leads.