We have been lovers now, my dear,
It matters nothing to say how long,
But still at the coming round o' th' year
I make for my pleasure a little song;
And thus of my love I sing, my dear,—
So much the more by a year, by a year.
And still as I see the day depart,
And hear the bat at my window flit,
I sing the little song to my heart,
With just a change at the close of it;
And thus of my love I sing alway,—
So much the more by a day, by a day.
When in the morning I see the skies
Breaking into a gracious glow,
I say you are not my sweetheart's eyes,
Your brightness cannot mislead me so;
And I sing of my love in the rising light,—
So much the more by a night, by a night.
Both at the year's sweet dawn and close,
When the moon is filling, or fading away,
Every day, as it comes and goes,
And every hour of every day,
My little song I repeat and repeat,—
So much the more by an hour, my sweet!
OUR SOLDIERS.
We entered gayly on our great contest. At the first sound from Sumter, enthusiasm blazed high and bright. Bells rang out, flags waved, the people rose as one man to cheer on our troops, and the practical American nation, surveying itself with astonishment, pronounced itself—finger on pulse—enthusiastic; and though, in the light of the present steadily burning determination, it has been the fashion gently to smile at that quick upspringing blaze, and at the times when it was gravely noted how the privates of our army took daily baths and wore Colt's revolvers, and pet regiments succumbed under showers of Havelocks, in contrast with the grim official reports of to-day, I cannot but think that enthusiasm healthful, and in itself a lesson, if only that it proves beyond question that our patriotism was not simply a dweller on the American tongue, but a thing of the American heart, so vitalizing us, so woven every day into the most minute ramifications of our living, so inner and recognized a part of our thinking, that there have been found some to doubt its existence, just as we half forget the gracious air, because no labored gasps, in place of our sure and even breathing, ever by any chance announce to us that somewhere there have been error and confusion in its vast workings.
Bitterer texts were ready all too soon. When we heard how one had fallen, bayoneted at the guns, and another was struck, charging on the foe, and a third had died after long lingering in hospital,—when we saw our brave boys, whom we had sent out with huzzas, coming back to us with the blood and grime of battle upon them, maimed, ghastly, dying, dead,—we knew that we, whom God had hitherto so blessed that we were compelled to look into the annals of other nations for misery and strife, had now commenced a record of our own. Henceforth there was for us a new literature, new grooves of thought, new interests. By all the love of father, brother, husband, and children, we must learn more of this tragic and tender lore; and our soldiers have been a thought not far from the heart and lips of any one of us, and what is done, or doing, or possible for them, held worthiest of our thought and time.
Respecting these, we have had all to learn. True, with us, satisfaction has at all times followed close upon the announcement of a need; but wisdom in planning and administering is not a marketable commodity, and so we are educating ourselves up to the emergency,—the whole mighty nation at school, and learning, we are bound to say, with Yankee quickness. Love has been for us, also, a marvellous brain-prompter. Some of our grandest charities—I mean charities in the broadest and sweetest sense, for it is we who owe, not our soldiers—have been the inspiration of a moment's need,—thoughts of the people, who, in crises and at instance of the heart, think well and swiftly. Take this one example.
When New England's sons seized their arms, the first to answer the trumpet-call that rang out over the land, and went in the spirit of their fathers to the battle,—when these men passed through Philadelphia, hungry and weary, the great heart of the city went out to meet them. Citizens brought them into their houses, the neighboring shops gave gladly what they could, women came running with food snatched from their own tables, and even little squalid children toddled out of by-lanes and alleys with loaves and half-loaves, all that they had to give, so did the whole people yearn over their defenders; and then it was seen how other regiments would come to them, ready for the fray, but dusty and way-worn, and how the ambulances would bring them back parched and fainting, and—it was hardly known how, only that, as in the old times, "the people were of one mind and one accord," and brought of such things as they had; but on that sad, yet proud day, that brought back to them those who fell in Baltimore on the memorable nineteenth of April,—the heroes in whom all claim a share, and the right to say, not only Massachusetts's dead and wounded, but ours—there was ready for them a shelter in the unpretending building famous since as the Cooper Shop. There the people crowded about them, weeping, blessing, consoling; and from that day there has no regiment from New England, New York, or any other State, been suffered to pass through Philadelphia unrefreshed. Water was supplied them, and tables ready spread, by the Volunteer Corps always in attendance, within five minutes after the firing of the gun that announced their arrival. There was shortly added, also, a volunteer hospital for the more dangerously wounded when first brought from the battle-field, and of it is told a story that Americans will like to hear.