Her blooming girls and stalwart boys
Could never comprehend the woe
Which dropped its measure of their joys,
And felt but horror in the show,
And heard but murder in the noise,
And dreamed of death when stillness fell
Behind the gay and shouting corps.
They saw her haunted by the spell
Of a great sorrow, and forebore
To question what they could not quell.
Small time she gave to vain regret;
Brief space to thought of that adieu
Which crushed her breast, when last they met,
And in love's baptism bathed anew
Cheeks, lips, and eyes, and left them wet!
In deeds of sympathy and grace,
She moved among the homes forlorn,
Alike to beautiful and base
And, to the stricken and the shorn,
The guardian angel of the place.
XXII.
Oh piteous waste of hopes and fears!
Oh cruel stretch of long delay!
Oh homes bereft! Oh useless tears!
Oh war! that ravened on its prey
Through pain's immeasurable years!
The town was mourning for its dead;
The streets were black with widowhood;
While orphaned children begged for bread,
And Rachel, for the brave and good,
Mourned, and would not be comforted.
The regiment that, straight and crisp,
Shone like a wheat-field in the sun,
Its swift voice deafened to a lisp,
Fell, ere the war was well begun,
And waned and withered to a wisp.
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