Blow o'er them lightly with a soft caress,
Wind of the sea;
If you are tender they may miss love less—
Where'er they be.
Come, gentle moon, swing low your lantern light
On reddened fields,
And find the lonely harvest of the night
That battle yields.
Banish the darkness filled with quivering dread,
Lest they should know
Some last strange horror,—even they—the dead;—
Sweet moon, swing low!
Fold them at dawn, dear Earth, within your arms
So safe and strong;
Hold them asleep till they forget alarms,
And woe and wrong.
Master of Kings! If peace be bought with pain,
These paid the price;
O show Thy tortured world that not in vain,
Is sacrifice!
THE CROSSES
The little lonely crosses, the crosses low and white,
They haunt me most in the silver hour
That lies against the night;
Or when the rose-dusk dawn comes in,
With a star for candlelight.
The little lonely crosses in fields so far away,
They cast a shadow on my path—
And, take which road I may,
It follows, follows, follows—
Throughout the livelong day.
O little lonely crosses that gentle hands have made,
You mean to us forevermore
The price that has been paid
For a heritage of Freedom,
And a People unafraid.