The weary waiting time had come,
When only apprehension waked;
And lonely wives sat chill and dumb
Among their broods, with hearts that ached
And echoed the retreating drum.
Teachers forgot to preach their creeds,
And trade forsook its merchandise;
The fallow fields grew rank with weeds,
And none had interest or eyes
For aught but war's ensanguined deeds.
As one who lingered by a bier
Where all she loved lay dead and cold,
Sad Mildred sat without a tear,
Living again the days of old,
Or, with the vision of a seer,
Forecasting the disastrous end.
Whatever might come, she did not dare
Believe that fortune would defend
The noble life she could not spare,
And save her lover and her friend.
Her blooming girls and stalwart boys
Could never comprehend the woe
Which dropped its measure of their joys,
And felt but horror in the show,
And heard but murder in the noise,
And dreamed of death when stillness fell
Behind the gay and shouting corps.
They saw her haunted by the spell
Of a great sorrow, and forebore
To question what they could not quell.
Small time she gave to vain regret;
Brief space to thought of that adieu
Which crushed her breast, when last they met,
And in love's baptism bathed anew
Cheeks, lips, and eyes, and left them wet!
In deeds of sympathy and grace,
She moved among the homes forlorn,
Alike to beautiful and base
And, to the stricken and the shorn,
The guardian angel of the place.
XXII.
Oh piteous waste of hopes and fears!
Oh cruel stretch of long delay!
Oh homes bereft! Oh useless tears!
Oh war! that ravened on its prey
Through pain's immeasurable years!