Pause here by this bedside. How mellow
The light showers down on that brow;
Such a brave, brawny visage! Poor fellow!
Some homestead is missing him now;
Some wife shaded her eyes in the clearing;
Some mother sits moaning, distressed;
While the lov’d one lies faint but unfearing,
With the enemy’s ball in his breast.
Here’s another; a lad—a mere stripling—
Picked up on the fields almost dead,
With the blood through the sunny hair rippling,
From a horrible gash in the head!
They say he was first in the action,
Gay-hearted, quick-handed and witty;
He fought till he dropped with exhaustion,
In front of our fair Southern city.
Fought and fell ’neath the guns of that city,
With a spirit transcending his years;
Lift him up in your large-hearted pity,
And wet his pale lips with your tears:
Touch him gently; most sacred that duty
Of dressing that poor shatter’d hand;
God spare him to rise in his beauty,
And battle once more for his land!
Who groan’d? What a passionate murmur:
“In Thy mercy, oh God! let me die!
Ha! surgeon, your hand must be firmer,”
That musket ball’s entered his thigh:
Turn the light on those poor furrow’d features,
Gray-haired and unknown, bless thee, brother!
Oh Heaven! that one of Thy creatures
Should e’er work such woe on another.
Wipe the sweat from his brow with your ’kerchief
Let the tatter’d old collar go wide!
See! he stretches out blindly to see if
The surgeon still stands by his side:
“My son’s over yonder—he’s wounded—
O this ball has entered my thigh!”
And again he burst out all a tremble,
“In Thy mercy, O God, let me die!”
Pass on: It is useless to linger
While other are claiming your care;
There is need for your delicate finger,
For your womanly sympathy there:
There are sick ones athirst for caressing;
There are dying ones raving of home
There are wounds to be bound with a blessing
And shrouds to make ready for some.
They have gathered about you the harvest
Of death in its ghastliest view;
The nearest as well as the farthest
Is here with the traitor and true;
And crown’d with your beautiful patience,
Made sunny with love at the heart;
You must balsam the wounds of a nation,
Nor falter nor shrink from your part.
Up and down through the wards where the fever
Stalks noisome and gaunt and impure,
You must go with your steadfast endeavor
To comfort, to counsel, to cure!
I grant you the task is superhuman,
But strength will be given to you
To do for those lov’d ones, what woman
Alone in her pity can do.
And the lips of the mothers will bless you,
As angels sweet visaged and pale;
And the little ones run to caress you,
And the wives and the sisters cry Hail!
But e’en if you drop down unheeded,
What matter? God’s ways are the best!
You have pour’d out your life where ’twas needed,
And He will take care of the rest. |