THE maimed and broken warrior lay,
By his last foeman brought to bay.
No sounds of battlefield were there--
The drum's deep bass, the trumpet's blare.
No lilies of swart battalions broke
Infuriate, thro' the sulphurous smoke.
But silence held the tainted room
An ominous hush, an awful gloom,
Save when, with feverish moan, he stirred,
And dropped some faint, half-muttered word,
Or outlined in vague, shadowy phrase,
The changeful scenes of perished days!
What thoughts on his bewildered brain,
Must then have flashed their blinding pain!
The past and future, blent in one,--
Wild chaos round life's setting sun.
But most his spirit's yearning gaze
Was fain to pierce the future's haze,
And haply view what fate should find
The tender loves he left behind.
"O God! outworn, despondent, poor,
I tarry at death's opening door,
While subtlest ties of sacred birth
Still bind me to the lives of earth.
How can I in calm courage die,
Thrilled by the anguish of a cry
I know from orphaned lips shall start
Above a father's pulseless heart?"
His eyes, by lingering languors kissed,
Shone like sad stars thro' autumn mist;
And all his being felt the stress
Of helpless passion's bitterness.
When, from the fever-haunted room,
The prescient hush, the dreary gloom,
A blissful hope divinely stole
O'er the vexed waters of his soul,
That sank as sank that stormy sea,
Subdued by Christ in Galilee.
It whispered low, with smiling mouth,
"She is not dead,--thy queenly South.
And since for her each liberal vein
Lavished thy life, like vintage rain,
When round the bursting wine-press meet
The Ionian harvesters' crimsoned feet;
And since for her no galling curb
Could bind thy Patriot will superb.
Yea! since for her thine all was spent,
Unmeasured, with a grand content,--
Soldier, thine orphaned ones shall rest,
Serene, on her imperial breast.
Her faithful arms shall be their fold,
In summer's heat, in winter's cold;
And her proud beauty melt above
Their weakness in majestic love!"
Ah! then the expiring hero's face,
Like Stephen's, glowed with rapturous grace.
Mad missiles of a morbid mood,
Hurled at his heart in solitude,
No longer wounding, round it fell;
Peace sweetened his supreme farewell!
For sure the harmonious hope was true,
O South! he leaned his faith on you!
And in clear vision, ere he died,
Saw its pure promise justified.
