By the twilight Christmas fire,
All her senses laden
With a weight of tenderness,
Sits the musing maiden:
From the parlor's cheerful blaze,
Far her visions wander,
To the white tent gleaming bright,
On the hill-side yonder.
Buoyant in her brave, young love,
Flushed with patriot honour,
No misgiving, no fond fear,
Flings its shade upon her.
Though no mortal soul can know
Half the love she bears him,
Proudly, for her country's sake,
From her heart she spares him.
—God be thanked!—she does not dream,
That her gallant lover
Will be in a soldier's grave,
When the war is over!
IV.
'Midst the turmoil and the strife
Of the war-tide's rushing,
Every heart its separate woe
In its depths is hushing.
Who has time for tears, when blood
All the land is steeping?
—In our poverty we grudge
Even the waste of weeping!
But when quiet comes again,
And the bands, long broken,
Gather round the hearth, and breathe
Names now seldom spoken—
Then we'll miss the precious links—
Mourn the empty places—
Read the hopeless "Nevermore,"
In each other's faces!
—Oh! what aching, anguish'd hearts
O'er lone graves will hover,
With a new, fresh sense of pain,
When the war is over!
V.
Stern endurance, bitterer still,
Sharp with self-denial,
Fraught with loftier sacrifice,
Fuller far of trial—
Strews our flinty path of thorns—
Marks our bloody story—
Fits us for the victor's palm—
Weaves our robe of glory!
Shall we faint with God above,
And His strong arm under—
And the cold world gazing on,
In a maze of wonder?
No! with more resistless march,
More resolved endeavor,
Press we onward—struggle still,
Fight and win forever!
—Holy peace will heal all ills,
Joy all losses cover,
Raptures rend our Southern skies,
When the war is over!