III.
Ye, who by the couches of languishing ones,
Have watched through the rising and setting of suns,—
Who, silent, behind the close curtain, withdrawn,
Scarce know that the current of being sweeps on,—
To whom outer life is unreal, untrue,
A world with whose moils ye have nothing to do;
Who feel that the day, with its multiform rounds,
Is full of discordant, impertinent sounds,—
Who speak in low whispers, and stealthily tread,
As if a faint footfall were something to dread,—
Who find all existence,—its gladness, its gloom,—
Enclosed by the walls of that limited room,—
Ye only can measure the sleepless unrest
That lies like a night-mare on Alice's breast.
Days come and days go, and she watches the strife
So evenly balanced, 'twixt death and 'twixt life;
Thanks God he still breathes, as each evening takes wing,
And dares not to think what the morrow may bring.
In the lone, ghostly midnight, he raves as he lies,
With death's ashen pallidness dimming his eyes:
He shouts the sharp war-cry,—he rallies his men,—
He is on the red field of Manassas again.
"Now, courage, my comrades! Keep steady! lie low!
Wait, like the couch'd lion, to spring on your foe:
Ye'll face without flinching the cannons' grim mouth,
For ye're 'Knights of the Horse-Shoe'—ye're Sons of the South!
There's Jackson!—how brave he rides! coursing at will,
Midst the prostrated lines on the crest of the hill;
God keep him! for what will we do if he falls?
Be ready, good fellows!—be cool when he calls
To the charge: Oh! we'll beat them,—we'll turn them,—and then
We'll ride them down madly!—On! Onward! my men!"
The feverish frenzy o'erwearies him soon,
And back on his pillows he sinks in a swoon.
And sometimes, when Alice is wetting his lip,
He turns from the draught, and refuses to sip:
—"'Tis sweet, pretty angel!—but yonder there lies
A famishing comrade, with death in his eyes:
His need is far greater, ... Sir Philip, I think,—
Or was it Sir Philip?... go, go!—let him drink!"
And oft, with a sort of bewildered amaze,
On her face he would fasten the wistfullest gaze:
—"You are kind, but a hospital nurse cannot be
Like Alice,—my tenderest Alice,—to me.
Oh! I know there's at Beechenbrook, many a tear,
As she asks all the day,—'Will he never be here?'"
But Nature, kind healer! brings sovereignest balm,
And strokes the wild pulses with coolness and calm;
The conflict so equal, so stubborn, is past,
And life gains the hardly-won battle at last.
How sweet through the long convalescence to lie,
And from the low window, gaze out at the sky,
And float, as the zephyrs so tranquilly do,
Aloft in the depths of ineffable blue:—
In painless, delicious half consciousness brood,—
No duties to cumber, no claims to intrude,—
Receptive as childhood, from trouble as free,
And feel it is bliss enough simply, to be!