At length, with the gradual fading of day,—
The tokens of battle are floated away:
The booming no longer makes sullen the air,
And the silence of night seems as holy as prayer.
Gray shadows still linger the beeches among,
And scarce has the earliest matin been sung,
Ere Alice with Beverly pale at her side,
Yet firm as his mother, is ready to ride.
With sympathy, womanly, tender, divine,—
With lint and with bandage, with bread and with wine,—
She hastes to the battle-field, eager to bear
Relief to the wounded and perishing there:
To breathe, like an angel of mercy, the breath
Of peace over brows that are fainting in death.
She dares not to stir with a question, her woe,
One word,—and the bitter-brimm'd heart would o'erflow:
But speechless, and moveless, and stony of eye,
Scarce conscious of aught in the earth or the sky,
In a swoon of the heart, all her senses have reeled,—
But she prays for endurance,—for here is the field.
The flight and pursuit, so harassing, so hot,
Have drifted all combatants far from the spot:
And through the sparse woodlands, and over the plain,
Lie gorily scattered, the wounded and slain.
Oh! the sickness,—the shudder,—the quailing of fear,
As it leaps to her lips,—"What if Douglass be here!"
Yet she frames not a question; her spirit can bear
Oh! anything,—all things, but hopeless despair:
Does her darling lie stretched on the slope of yon hill?
Let her doubt—let her hug the suspense, if she will!
She watches each ambulance-burden with dread;
She loots in the faces of dying and dead:
And hour after hour, with steady control,
She bends to her task all the strength of her soul;
She comforts the wounded with pity's sweet care,
And the spirit that's passing, she speeds with her prayer.
She starts as she hears, from her stout-hearted boy,
A wild exclamation, half doubt and half joy:—
"Oh! Surgeon!—some brandy! he's fainting!—Ah! now
The colour comes back to his cheek and his brow:—
He breathes again—speaks again—listen!—you are
'An orderly'—is it?—'of Colonel Dunbar?'
'He fought like a lion!' (I knew it!) and passed
Untouched through the battle, 'unhurt to the last?'
—My father is safe,—mother!—safe!—what a joy!
And here is Macpherson,—our barefooted boy!"