With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned away her head;
With a sad and bitter feeling look’d she back upon her dead;
But she heard the youth’s low moaning, and his struggling breath of pain,
And she raised the cooling water to his parching lips again.
Whisper’d low the dying soldier, press’d her hand and faintly smiled.
Was that pitying face his mother’s? Did she watch besides her child?
All his stronger words with meaning her woman’s heart supplied;
With her kiss upon his forehead, “Mother!” murmur’d he and died.
“A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee forth,
From some gentle sad-eyed mother, weeping, lonely in the North!”
Spoke the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him with her dead,
And turn’d to soothe the living, and bind the wounds which bled.
Look forth once more Ximena! like a cloud before the wind
Rolls the battle down the mountains leaving blood and death behind.
Oh! they plead in vain for mercy—in the dust the wounded strive;
Hide your faces, holy angels! O thou Christ of God forgive!
Sink, O night, among thy mountains! let the cool gray shadows fall;
Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain over all!
Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart the battle rolled,
In its sheath the sabre rested and the cannon’s mouth grew cold.
But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pursued,
Through that long dark night of sorrow worn and faint and lacking food;
Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender care they hung,
And the dying foeman bless’d them in a strange and Northern tongue.
Not wholly lost, O Father, is this evil world of ours;
Upward, through its blood and ashes spring afresh the Eden flowers;
From its smoking hill of battle love and pity send their prayer,
And still Thy white-wing’d angels hover dimly in our air.
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯●⎯○⎯●⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
XII.
CATHERINE ELIZABETH McAULEY.
Miss Catherine Elizabeth McAuley, the foundress of the Order of Sisters of Mercy, ranks high among the notable women whose achievements have enriched the history of the Catholic Church. The religious institution first planted by her in the city of Dublin has spread to such an extent that its branches now spread into at least every quarter of the English-speaking globe. The communities of the Sisters of Mercy in the United States have done excellent work in many fields, but they particularly distinguished themselves as nurses during the unhappy conflict between the North and the South.