The Mistress of the Manse

by J. G. Holland

XXV.

The day of Gettysburg had set;
The smoke had drifted from the scene,
And burnished sword and bayonet
Lay rusting where, but yestere'en,
They dropped with life-blood red and wet!

The swift invader had retraced
His march, and left his fallen braves,
Covered at night in voiceless haste,
To, sleep, in memorable graves,
But knew that all his loss was waste.

The nation's legions, stretching wide,
Too sore to chase, too weak to cheer,
Gave sepulture to those who died,
And saw their foemen disappear
Without the loss of power or pride.

And then, swift-sweeping like a gale,
Through all the land, from end to end,
Grief poured its wild, untempered wail,
And father, mother, wife, and friend
Forgot their country in their bale.

And Philip, with his fatal wound,
Was borne beyond the battle's blaze,
Across the torn and quaking ground,—
His ear too dull to heed the praise,
That spoke him hero, robed and crowned.

They bent above his blackened face,
And questioned of his last desire;
And with his old, familiar grace,
And smiling mouth, and eye of fire,
He answered them: "My wife's embrace!"

They wiped his forehead of its stain,
They bore him tenderly away,
Through teeming mart and wide champaign,
Till on a twilighty cool and gray,
And wet with weeping of the rain,

They gave him to a silent crowd
That waited at the river's marge,
Of men with age and sorrow bowed,
Who raised and bore their precious charge,
Through groups that watched and wailed aloud.

XXVI.

The hounds of power were at her gate;
And at their heels, a yelping pack
Of graceless mongrels stood in wait,
To mark the issue of attack,
With lips that slavered with their hate.

With window raised and portal barred,
The mistress scanned the darkening space,
And with a visage hot and hard—
At bay before the cruel chase—
She held them in her fierce regard.

"What would ye—spies and hirelings—what?"
She asked with accent, stern and brave;
"Why come ye to this sacred spot,
Led by the counsel of a knave,
And flanked by slanderer and sot?

"You have my husband: has he earned
No meed of courtesy for me?
Is this the recompense returned,
That she he loved the best should be
Suspected, persecuted, spurned?

"My home is wrecked: what would ye more?
My life is ruined—what new boon?
My children's hearts are sad and sore
With weeping for the wounds that soon
Will plead for healing at my door!

"I hold your prisoner—stand assured:
Safe from his foes: aye, safe from you!
Safe in a sister's love immured,
And by a warden kept as true
As e'er the test of faith endured,

"Why, men, he was my brother born!
My hero, all my youthful years!
My counsellor, to guide and warn!
My shield alike from foes and fears!
And when he came to me, forlorn,

"What could I do but hail him guest,
And bind his cruel wounds with balm,
And give him on his sister's breast
That which he asked, the humble alm
Of a safe pillow where to rest?

"Come, then, and dare the wrath of fate!
Come, if you must, or if you will!
But know that I am desperate;
And shafts that wound, and wounds that kill
Your deed of dastardy await!"

A murmur swept through all the mob;
The base informer slunk afar;
And lusty cheer and stifled sob
Rose to her at the window-bar,
While those whose hands were come to rob

Her dwelling of its treasure, cursed;
For round their heads the menace flew
That he who dared adventure first,
Or first an arm of murder drew,
Should taste of vengeance at its worst.

XXVII.

A heavy tramp, a murmuring sound,
Low mingling with the murmuring rain,—
Heard in the wind and in the ground,—
Came up the street—a tide of pain,
In which the angry din was drowned.

The leaders of the tumult fled;
The door flew open with a crash;
And down the street wild Mildred sped,
Piercing the darkness like a flash,
And walked beside her husband's bed.

Slowly the solemn train advanced;
The crowd fell back with parted ranks;
And like a giant, half entranced,
Sailing between strange, spectral banks,
From side to side the soldier glanced.

The sobbing rain, the evening dim,
The dusky forms that pushed and peered,
The swaying couch, the aching limb,
The lights and shadows, sharp and weird,
Were but a troubled dream to him.

He knew his love—all else unknown,
Or seen through reason's sad eclipse—
And with her, hand within his own,
Or fondly pressed upon his lips,
He clung to it, as if alone

It had the power to stay, his feet
Still longer on the verge of life;
And thus they vanished from the street—
The shepherd-warrior and his wife—
Within the manse's closed retreat.

XXVIII.

Embraced by home, his soul grew light;
And though he moaned: "My head! my head!"
His life turned back its outward flight,
Like his, who, from the prophet's bed,
Startled the wondering Shunammite.

He greeted all with tender speech;
He told his children he should die;
He gave his fond farewell to each,
With messages, and fond good-by
To all he loved beyond his reach.

And then he spoke her brother's name:
"Tell him," he said, "that, in my death,
I cherished his untarnished fame,
And, to my life's expiring breath,
Held his brave spirit free from blame.

"We strove alike for truth's behoof,
With honest faith and love sincere,—
For God and-country, right and roof,
And issues that do not appear;
But wait with Heaven the awful proof."

A tottering figure reached the door;
The brother fell upon the bed,
And, in each other's arms once more,
With breast to breast, and head to head,—
Twin barks, they drifted from the shore;

And backward on the sobbing air
Came the same words from warring lips:
"God save my country!" and the prayer
Still wailing from the drifting ships,
Returned in measures of despair;

Till far, at the horizon's verge,
They passed beyond the tearful eyes
That could not know if in the surge
They sank at last, or in the skies
Forgot the burden of their dirge!

XXIX.

In Northern blue and Southern brown,
Twin coffins and a single grave,
They laid the weary warriors down;
And hands that strove to slay and save
Had equal rest and like renown.

For in the graveyard's hallowed close
A woman's love made neutral soil,
Where it might lay the forms of those
Who, resting from their fateful broil,
Had ceased forever to be foes.

To her and those who clung to her—
From manly eldest down to least—
The obsequies, the sepulchre,
The chanting choir, the weeping priest,
And all the throng and all the stir

Of sympathetic country-folk,
And all the signs of death and dole,
Were but a dream that beat and broke
In chilling waves on heart and soul,
Till in the silence they awoke.

She was a widow, and she wept;
She was a mother, and she smiled;
Her faith with those she loved was kept,
Though still the war-cry, fierce and wild,
Around the harried country swept.

No more with this had she to do;
God and her little ones were left;
And unto these, serene and true,
She gave the life so soon bereft
Of its first gifts, and rose anew

At duty's call to make amends
For all her loss of loves and lands;
And found, to speed her noble ends,
The succor of uplifting hands,
And solace of a thousand friends.

And o'er her precious graves she built
A stone whereon the yellow boss
Of sword on sword with naked hilt
Lay as the symbol of her cross,
In mournful meaning, carved and gilt.

And underneath were graved the lines:—

"THEY DID THE DUTY THAT THEY SAW; BOTH WROUGHT AT GOD'S SUPREME DESIGNS AND, UNDER LOVE'S ETERNAL LAW, EACH LIFE WITH EQUAL BEAUTY SHINES."

XXX.

Peace, with its large and lilied calms,
Like moonlight sleeps on land and lake,
With healing in its dewy balms,
For pride that pines and hearts that ache,
From Huron to the land of palms!

From rock-bound Massachusetts Bay
To San Francisco's Golden Gate;
From where Itasca's waters play,
To those which plunge or palpitate
A thousand happy leagues away,

And drink, among her dunes and bars,
The Mississippi's boiling tide,
Still floating from a million spars,
The nation's ensign, undefied,
Blazons its galaxy of stars.

No more to party strife the slave,
And freed from Hate's infernal spells,
Love pays her tribute to the brave,
And snows her holy immortelles
O'er friend and foe, where'er his grave.

On every Decoration Day
The white-haired Mildred finds her mounds
Decked with the garnered bloom of May—
Flowers planted first within her wounds,
And fed by love as white as they.

And Philip's first-born, strong and sage,
Through Heaven's design or happy chance
Finds the old church his heritage,
And still, The Mistress of the Manse,
Sits Mildred, in her silver age!

End of Project Gutenberg's The Mistress of the Manse, by J. G. Holland