II
Six red moons have rolled away,
And the sun is shining on Christmas day.
Over the hills of fair Lorraine—
Heaps of ashes and rows of slain.
Where merrily rang the light guitar,
The angry trump of the red hussar
Flings on the midnight's shrinking breath,
The direful notes of the Dance of Death!
Underneath the clustered vines,
The sentry's glittering saber shines.
Over the banks of the blue Moselle,
Rain of rocket and storm of shell!
Where to-day is the forehead fair,
Crowned with masses of midnight hair?
A summer's twilight saw him fall,
Dead on Verdun's leaguered wall.
Where, alas! is the little cot?
Ask the blackened walls of Gravelotte!
Under the lilac broods alone
A maid whose heart is turned to stone.
Who sits, with folded fingers, dumb,
And meekly prays that her time may come!
Yet see! the Death-god's baleful star!
And War's black eagle screams afar!
And lo! the Christmas shadows wane
Over the hills of sad Lorraine.
Quarterly, 1873.