Till, wild with heart-break, toward the East I turn,
Waiting for dawn of day;--
And chanting sea, and asphodel and star
Are faded, all, away.
Only within my trembling, trembling hands--
Brought unto me by thee--
I clasp these beautiful and fragile things,
Bright sea-weeds from the sea,
Fair bloom the flowers beneath these Northern skies,
Pure shine the stars by night,
And grandly sing the grand Atlantic waves
In thunder-throated might;
But, as the sea-shell in her chambers keeps
The murmur of the sea,
So the deep-echoing memories of my home
Will not depart from me.
Prone on the page they lie, these gentle things!
As I have seen them cast
Like a drowned woman's hair, along the beach,
When storms were over-past;
Prone, like mine own affections, cast ashore
In Battle's storm and blight;
Would they had died, like sea-weeds! Pray forgive me
But I must weep to-night.
Tell me again, of Summer fields made fair
By Spring's precursing plough;
Of joyful reapers, gathering tear-sown harvests--
Talk to me,--will you?--now!
The Salkehatchie.
By Emily J. Moore.
Written when a garrison, at or near Salkehatchie Bridge, were threatening a raid up in the Fork of Big and Little Salkehatchie.