Dead leaves and stricken boughs
She heaped o'er the fallen form—
Wolf nor hawk nor lawless storm
Him from his rest should rouse;
But first, with solemn vows,
Took rifle, pouch, and horn,
And the belt that he had worn.
Then, onward pressing fast
Through the forest rude and vast,
Hunger-wasted, fever-parch'd,
Many bitter days she marched
With bleeding feet that spurned the flinty pain;
One thought always throbbing through her brain:
"They shall never say, 'He was afraid,'—
They shall never cry, 'The coward stayed!'"
VIII
Now the wilderness is passed;
Now the first hut reached, at last.
Ho, dwellers by the frontier trail,
Come forth and greet the bride of war!
From cabin and rough settlement
They come to speed her on her way—
Maidens, whose ruddy cheeks grow pale
With pity never felt before;
Children that cluster at the door;
Mothers, whose toil-worn hands are lent
To help, or bid her longer stay.
But through them all she passes on,
Strangely martial, fair and wan;
Nor waits to listen to their cheers
That sound so faintly in her ears.
For now all scenes around her shift,
Like those before a racer's eyes
When, foremost sped and madly swift,
Quick stretching toward the goal he flies,
Yet feels his strength wane with his breath,
And purpose fail 'mid fears of death,—
Till, like the flashing of a lamp,
Starts forth the sight of Arnold's camp,—
The bivouac flame, and sinuous gleam
Of steel,—where, crouched, the army waits,
Ere long, beyond the midnight stream,
To storm Quebec's ice-mounded gates.
IX
Then to the leader she was brought,
And spoke her simply loyal thought.
If, 'mid the shame of after-days,
The man who wronged his country's trust
(Yet now in worth outweighed all praise)
Remembered what this woman wrought,
It should have bowed him to the dust!
"Humbly my soldier-husband tried
To do his part. He served,—and died.
But honor did not die. His name
And honor—bringing both, I came;
And this his rifle, here, to show,
While far away the tired heart sleeps,
To-day his faith with you he keeps!"
Proudly the war bride, ending so,
Sank breathless in the dumb white snow.