Many a gray-haired sire has died,
As falls the oak, to rise no more,
Because his son, his prop, his pride,
Breathed out his last all red with gore.
No more on earth, at morn, at eve,
Shall age and youth, entwined as one--
Nor father, son, for either grieve--
Life's work, alas, for both is done!
Many a mother's heart has bled
While gazing on her darling child,
As in its tiny eyes she read
The father's image, kind and mild;
For ne'er again his voice will cheer
The widowed heart, which mourns him dead;
Nor kisses dry the scalding tear,
Fast falling on the orphan's head!
Many a little form will stray
Adown the glen and o'er the hill,
And watch with wistful looks the way
For him whose step is missing still;
And when the twilight steals apace
O'er mead, and brook, and lonely home,
And shadows cloud the dear, sweet face--
The cry will be, "Oh, papa, come!"
And many a home's in ashes now,
Where joy was once a constant guest,
And mournful groups there are, I trow,
With neither house nor place of rest;
And blood is on the broken _sill_,[21]
Where happy feet went to and fro,
And everywhere, by field and hill,
Are sickening sights and sounds of woe;
There is a God who rules on high,
The widow's and the orphan's friend,
Who sees each tear and hears each sigh
That these lone hearts to Him may send!
And when in wrath He tears away
The reasons vain which men indite,
The record-book will plainest say
Who's in the wrong, and who is right.
'TIS MIDNIGHT IN THE SOUTHERN SKY.