The boom of cannon in the distance, flags floating gaily in the bright
morning air, strains of martial music filling it, a waving of caps and
handkerchiefs, shouts in the streets below, and the tramp of many feet.
A regiment is passing! To a stern fate, that beckons darkly in the
distance, these patriots are moving, with firm, determined tread--to
long, exhausting marches, and fireless bivouac; to hunger and cold; to
sufferings in varied forms; to wounds and imprisonment; _to death_! God
knows when and how they are going;--and, amid the doomed throng slowly
passing, the bright face of my darling smilingly upturned to mine. I
wave my hand and kiss it; my handkerchief is wet through and through.
He came to me but an hour since, decked in his uniform (a lamb decked
for the slaughter). 'I'm a lieutenant now,' he said, tapping his
shoulder gaily; 'I shall rival Sam Patch at a leap, and jump to the head
at once. Three months is enough to make a colonel of me.' And so, with
his young heart beating high and warm, upborne by wild hopes like these,
he held me to his heart at parting, and went away quite joyously, my
poor darling! shedding only a few tears in sympathy with mine. I watch
his form until I lose it in the mass before me; then I watch the mass
moving slowly, slowly on, bearing him away from me; till the heavy tramp
dies out upon the air, and the dark mass, growing less and less, becomes
a dim speck in the distance; and the music wanes, and wanes, and dies
out also, and in the still air about me only the voice of the wind is
heard: coming and going at long, lazy intervals, it speaks to my inner
sense with a warning note, a low requiem sound. Why is it that it takes
that weird tone always when sorrow is darkly waiting for me in the
future? What prophet's voice speaks to me in it? What invisible thing
without addresses its wild warning to the invisible within? As I
listened, my soul grew chill and dark with the shadow of a coming gloom;
my heart grew cold. God help me! How wildly, how almost despairingly I
prayed for my darling's life!
Alone in the world, we were all in all to each other. Mine was a wild,
exclusive love. Heart and soul were bound up in him. Other girls had
their lovers; my fond heart beat for him alone. What tie nearer and
dearer than the tie of blood united us? What bond, sacred and invisible,
bound our souls together? I know not; I only know that my heart and mind
echoed always the thoughts and moods of his; that, no matter what dreary
distance lay between us, our souls held communication still; that I
rejoiced when he was glad; and wept when I said, 'He is sorrowful
to-day.' He had gone away gay and hopeful, and had left me
weeping--oppressed by vague fears and chill forebodings, my heart could
not echo _now_ the happy mood of his. Wild and weird, all that dreary
day, the wind moaned its warning; and the sad echo sounded through other
dreary days that followed this; and dreary nights came also, when I
prayed and wept, and covered the pictured face with tears and
kisses--when I cried, 'God keep my precious one, and bring my darling
back to me;' and that was all my prayer;--when I sank to fitful
slumbers, and wildly dreamed of shell and cannon ball, and bullets thick
as hail, of foes met in deadly fray, of shielding my darling's form with
mine--there, where all was smoke and darkness and blood and horror--and
dying gladly in his stead. Or the scene changed from horror to
desolation, and, with a dreadful sense of isolation on me, alone in the
darkness I wandered up and down, blindly searching for him I never
found; or finding him, perhaps, covered with ghastly wounds, and dead,
quite dead; and then starting broad awake with horror at the sight.
God help us! us women, with our wild, inordinate affections, when Death
waits in ambush for our darlings, whom we are powerless to save from the
smallest of life's ills and perils! A letter came at last, eight dear
pages, with all the margins filled. Long, confidential, loving, with
just a thought of sadness in it; a slight, almost imperceptible shadow
resting on the glowing hopes with which he left; yet bright withal,
bright like himself. The charm of novelty was potent yet. How I read it
o'er and o'er, this first dear message from him; how I kissed the
senseless thing; how my tears fell upon it; how day and night I wore it
on my heart, until another took its place!
They came at stated intervals _now_, and as the time wore on, and their
tone changed, little by little, I knew that the hard life he led began
to tell upon him--that, petted, fondled, cherished as he had been,
unfitted for hardship of any kind, they grew at times almost too great
for calm endurance. He never complained, my grand, brave boy; he spoke
of them lightly always, sometimes jestingly, but he could not deceive
that fine interior sense. I knew there were times when he turned
heartsick from the wild life that claimed him; I could see how his noble
nature shrank from all that was coarse and revolting in it; how he
longed for fireside joys and sweet domestic peace, and pined with dreary
homesickness; how his heart cried out for me in the melancholy night.
And then even this comfort, that had softened the dull, longing pain
within, was denied me--no letters came. Mail after mail went and came,
and I grew feverish with suspense. I imagined him beset by ghastly
perils, and, with torturing uncertainty wearing my very life away, I
watched and waited as women are wont to do. Then dark rumors were afloat
of foes making a desperate advance, and of bloody battle pending. One
night a horror fell upon my troubled sleep--an appalling gloom, a
shuddering, suffocating sense of some impending doom. Battling fiercely
and blindly with this dread, invisible something, I awoke in deadly
fright, to find the terror no less clear to my perceptions, no less
palpable and real, and to wrestle with it still. Some blind instinct in
me called aloud for air; with difficulty mastering an almost
overpowering impulse to rush out into the night, I flew to the window,
raised it, and looked out. A fierce storm was raging--a storm of whose
very existence I had until that moment been unconscious. The thunder
rolled, and muttered, and broke in wild, fearful crashes. Sheets of
lightning every instant lighted up the blackness, and made the sky
terrific. Gushes of wind and rain wet and chilled me through and
through. Unmindful of it, with that fine interior sense aroused, I
listened with all my soul--not to the thunder's fearful voice, to the
wild beating of the storm, or to the wind's melancholy moaning, but to
_something_ on the tempestuous air, and yet a stranger to it.
There came a lull in the storm at last, and then, O God! O God! through
the sullen gloom, his voice was calling to me. Now faint and low, as if
his life was ebbing; then raised in agony, wild with supplication and
sharp with pain. I saw him covered with gaping wounds, on a hideous
field, piled with slain and soaked with blood. I went mad, I think: I
have a vague remembrance of rushing out into that fearful storm,
undressed as I was, with wild resolve to follow the sound of the voice,
to reach him somehow, or die in the mad attempt; of being brought back,
shut up in my room, and a sort of guard placed over me; of making wild
attempts to rush out again, and struggling ineffectually with those that
held me back--of raving wildly; then of long and dreamless slumbers,
when I had become exhausted, and the sharp agony was past; of rousing
myself to go about in a listless, apathetic way, waiting with dulled
sense for lists of killed and wounded; of the doctor bringing the paper
to me and saying, with his face all light: 'He is not dead; you will
find his name among the wounded;' of finding where he was, eluding their
vigilance, and travelling night and day until I reached the place. All
this seems vague and unreal, as a half-forgotten dream--too dim and
lifeless for memory. Entire change of scene, new sights and faces, and,
more than all, the conviction that the time had come for action _now_,
and that _he_ would need me, roused me from this misty state a little.
When I landed at the place, I think I recovered the clear consciousness
of my surroundings, while standing in the provost-marshal's office (the
city was under military rule) waiting my turn to speak.
Then I thought for the first time what a mad thing it was in me to have
come at all--at least, to have come in the way I had come; I, so
unpractical, so wofully lacking in that sterling common sense, that
potent weapon with which women battled successfully with the stern
realities of life; and thinking, too, with a dull pain at my heart, that
doubtless my darling would suffer by reason of my ignorance and
inability. I studied the mass of strange faces about me, thinking to
which I would turn for help, if help were needed. After reading them,
one after another, and rejecting them, I turned at last to a group in
front of me, and singled out one that was addressing the others, a man
of consequence among them--at least a certain superiority of air and
manner led to that conjecture. He had a fine open face, whose expression
changed continually; and the more I studied the face, the more I placed
a blind trust and reliance in it. Attracted by the magnetism of a fixed
gaze, probably, his eyes wandered from the group about him, after a
little while, wandered aimlessly about the room, and then met mine.
Seeing that I was watching him, or observing, perhaps, that I was
suffering, though, Heaven knows, the sight of misery of all kinds
_there_ was common enough, he crossed the room and came to me. 'You may
be obliged to wait some time longer yet,' he said, in a tone of hearty
kindness; 'you look ill, madam. You had better sit down.' He found a
chair and brought it to me. He was on the point of leaving, but I
grasped his arm as he turned to go. 'If you have any influence here,' I
said, in a half-distracted way, 'tell the clerk, tell somebody to let my
turn come next. My brother is here and wounded; I have travelled night
and day to get to him; it's dreadful to be so near, and yet to wait and
wait.' He turned in grave surprise, and looked at me narrowly, fancying,
from my incoherency, I was taking leave of my senses possibly. 'Your
name, young lady?' he said, at last. I gave it, 'Margaret Dunn.' He
started at the name, and a heavy shadow came over his face: 'And your
brother,' he said, hurriedly, 'is Lieutenant Dunn, of the Fifty-fifth
Illinois Volunteers, Company A? I am surgeon of the Fifty-fifth; I know
him well. He was a brave fellow, and as fine, manly, and handsome a
fellow as one need wish to see.' He ended with a sigh, and mingling with
the shadow there came a look of pity in his face. The past tense, which
I am sure he used unconsciously; the look of pity; the sigh but half
suppressed, overpowered me with dread. 'He has not died of his wounds?'
I gasped, grasping his arm convulsively, 'O God! he is not dead?' 'He is
alive,' said the doctor, gravely. 'Father, I thank Thee, Thou hast heard
my prayer!'
The sudden transition from that mortal dread of death to the blessed
certainty of life was too much; my joy was too great; forgetful of my
surroundings, unmindful of his presence, I wept and sobbed aloud. When I
had controlled my emotion in a measure, or at least their stormy outward
manifestation, I found the doctor regarding me with the same grave face.
'You should not have come here in your present weak, excited state,' he
said, at last, 'or, rather, you should not have come at all. From sights
and sounds of a hospital, even strong men turn with a shudder. It's no
place for a delicate woman.' 'He is there,' I murmured, tremulously; 'I
can suffer anything for those I love.' Regarding me in silence for a
moment, he looked as if taking my measure. 'These women that _can_
bear,' he said, with a sigh, 'sometimes overrate their powers of
endurance.' 'Do you think I shall have to wait much longer? do you think
I can go soon now?' I questioned, appealingly, breaking the silence that
had fallen between us. 'No, you must wait your turn,' said the doctor,
decidedly; 'besides, you are not calm enough yet; the surgeons are at
work in the ward where we are going. They are taking off a man's
limb--two or three of them, for that matter. I shan't take you there
until the operations are finished.' Then first came the horrid thought
that _he_ might be mutilated in the same way. Vague, indistinct,
dreadful visions uprose before me, of all sorts and kinds of horrid
disfigurement, and I grew sick and faint. 'Not _his_ limb!' I gasped,
struggling with a deathly faintness. 'No, not his,' said the doctor,
sorrowfully. The same cloud was still there that had settled on his face
when he first spoke of him; the same pity for me shining through it.
'There is a room here where the ladies go when they have long to wait.
You had better go in there and rest yourself. I will bring you some tea
and something light and palatable in the shape of food, and you must eat
and drink. Confiscated property, you see,' he said, as he entered; 'a
rebel family walked out, and we walked in; comfortable quarters.' I
noticed then there was a carpet on the floor, sofa, mirrors, and other
comforts. 'Sit down,' said the doctor. He had taken the tone of command
with me--a tone I would have resented at any other time; now, nerveless
and weak, relying on him solely, I obeyed him like a sick child. He
brought the tea, watched me while I drank it, looked on while I choked
down tears and food together. He ordered me to go to sleep, and left me.
Doubtless even this command had its effect. Things grew dreamy and
indistinct after a while; perhaps I slept a little; but the time seemed
very, very long. At last his tap at the door roused me from this
half-conscious state. 'Ready?' he briefly questioned, as he looked in, a
moment after. I said yes, tremulously: now that the time had come, I
trembled so I could scarcely keep my feet. He gave me his arm as we went
out together. 'It's not far,' he said, encouragingly, 'just across
here.' The fresh air did me good. Quite likely, the conversation he
perseveringly maintained on indifferent subjects, in spite of my random
replies, was also of service to me. I grew calmer as we went along. The
distance was but short, and we soon reached the place of our
destination--a large hotel, which had been hurriedly converted into a
hospital.
'Come,' said the doctor, pausing with his hand upon the door, and
turning to me, 'cheer up! There is no misery, after all, but what is in
the comparative degree. Things are never so bad but that they may have
been worse. I dare say, on occasion you can be a brave little woman.'
'I can,' I returned, eagerly, too grateful for his penetration, or at
least his good opinion, and too sad and abstracted altogether, to notice
that he was paying me a compliment. 'I can, indeed; indeed, you haven't
seen the best part of me.'
He smiled just the ghost of a smile in answer, as we went in. He led me
through several rooms into what had been a large dining hall--a chill,
bare, desolate place. Cots were ranged up and down the room, cots across
it, cots filled up the centre, and all, _all_ filled with sick and
wounded men. I thought if I was once in the room with my brother, some
instinct would lead me to him; but I felt no drawing toward any one of
those miserable bedsides, and a chill of disappointment fell upon me.
'Take me to the ward where my brother is lying,' I said to the doctor,
pleadingly, 'ah, pray do!' 'This _is_ the ward,' he replied, but he did
not take me to him. He stopped at every cot we passed. Of my burning
impatience, which he could not choose but see, of the urgent and almost
passionate appeals I made to hasten his progress, he took no notice
whatever. He stopped almost every moment; he felt the pulse of one
patient, questioned another, dealt out medicine here and there--took his
own time for everything. We stopped at last where, on the outside of the
coverlet, lay a wounded soldier, half dressed; a poor, mutilated
creature; a leg and an arm were gone. The face was turned toward the
wall, away from us; not a muscle moved; he was sleeping, probably. 'Take
me to my brother,' I piteously moaned, shuddering with horror as I
turned from the unaccustomed sight. 'I have waited so long; do take me
to my brother.' 'This is somebody's brother!' said the doctor, sharply.
Something in the tone, not the sharpness of it--something half familiar
in the broken outline of the form, caused a half-suffocating sense of a
vague, unutterable horror. A deathly faintness seized me; I sank into a
chair beside the bed. The doctor gave me water to drink--hastily and
silently sprinkled some water upon my head and face. There was a
movement of the poor maimed form upon the bed--he gave me a warning
look--the face turned toward us. It was my darling's! 'My life!'
Shivering and shuddering I threw myself upon the narrow bed beside him,
clasped my poor darling in my arms, and held his stricken heart to mine.
The hard, defiant look upon his features melted into one of
tenderness--down the worn face the tears fell slowly. 'I didn't know as
you would love me just the same,' he said. It was his right arm that was
gone. Calling him by every endearing name with wild expressions of
affection, I wiped the tears tenderly away, covering the dear face with
kisses, while my own fell fast. The doctor left us together for a
little--albeit used to scenes like this, wiping _his_ eyes as he went
away.
A gust of bitter passion swept over my darling. He started up. 'Rascally
rebels!' he cried; 'cursed bullets! Why couldn't they have been aimed at
my heart, and _killed_ me! I was willing to give my life--but to make a
wreck, a broken hull of me! Look at me, Maggie, a poor, maimed wretch.
What am I fit for? Who will care for me _now?_ To be an object of
loathing!' he continued, between his set teeth; 'to be a sight of
horror; to win, perhaps, after she gets used to the deformity, a little
meagre love for charity's sake; to be scorned, and loathed, and pitied;
if I could get only off from the face of the earth--out of the sight of
men; if God would let me die!' Wounded sorely as he was, his boyish
vanity in his really handsome person, his manly pride in its strength,
was more sorely wounded still. Yes, strangers _would_ think him a sight
to behold: had not even I turned shuddering from that disfigured form,
before I knew it was my darling's? He _was_ ruined for life, and he was
young too--only nineteen. He was very weak, and this passionate outbreak
of feeling had exhausted him. It was but a flash of his old fire at
best. His head sank back upon my arm again; he lay with his eyes closed,
resting for a little; when he spoke again, his voice was low and
wavering, tremulous with tears.
'I wouldn't care so much, only----' He paused, hesitated, drew with
difficulty a little locket from his bosom, and gazed upon it tearfully.
A jealous pain shot through my heart. I had thought until that moment
that I was all in all to him, first in his affections, as he was in
mine; that no rival shared his heart. _This_ was the bitterest pang of
all. I looked down at the beautiful face set in the locket, perfect as
to form and color, with such a fierce hatred of its original as I hope
in God's name I shall never feel again for any mortal breathing.
'It's all over between us,' he sighed; 'even if I were ungenerous enough
to ask it, she wouldn't receive me now.' My face spoke my scorn. 'Don't
blame her,' he said, pathetically; 'it isn't natural she should, poor
little thing! This for what she might have been to me.' Then, he kissed
the pictured face, and sorrowfully laid it back again upon his heart. 'I
thought to go back to her a colonel at least--a general, perhaps,' he
went on, with a piteous smile; 'to be crowned with laurels, loaded with
honors and proudly claim her as my bride: I little thought that this
would be the end!' It was a man's grave comment on a boy's wild dream.
He had buried his youth in those two weeks of anguish. It was a man's
face that looked upon me, and I read in it a man's strong endurance and
stern resolve. That, and the smile with which he said it, moved me more
than any emotion, however hopeless or despairing, could have done. My
grief burst forth anew.
Dearer, a thousand times dearer, now that love had left him, and
youthful friends turned coldly away. Ah! thank God! bless God! There are
none so dear to each other, so inexpressibly dear, as those whom sorrow
joins; no tie that binds so closely as the sacred bond of suffering. I
said so brokenly, sobbing out my love and sorrow, as I held him to my
heart. His longing for home had been intense; now that he had seen me,
it became wellnigh insupportable. To go away from this his place of
suffering--from the myriad eyes bent upon him here, and creep back
broken-hearted to that sacred sheltering haven, and hide his great grief
there--this wish absorbed him quite. 'I want to go home, Maggie,' he
said, in a broken-hearted whisper, clinging to me the while; 'I want to
go home and die.' Die! I wouldn't hear the word; I stopped its
half-formed utterance with tears and kisses. The doctor shook his head
at the suggestion and counselled delay; but he was burning with
impatience, and I was resolute. We started the very next day. We
travelled by easy stages, but he grew weaker all the time: toward the
last, with his head upon my breast, he would sleep for hours, peacefully
as a little child. Reduced to almost infant weakness when we reached our
journey's end, they took him in their arms tenderly as they would have
taken an infant, and laid him on my bed. There, in that darkened room, I
nursed him night and day, striving to win him back to thoughts of life,
and love of it. 'It's too late, Maggie,' he would say, with placid
resignation; 'life has nothing for me, dear; I want to go to sleep--to
that long, dreamless sleep, where memory never wakes to haunt us!' But
I couldn't bear it--I wouldn't have it so. I bade him think of how _my_
heart would break if he, too, died and left me! In my earnest love, I
called Heaven to witness that I was ready not only to die for him, if
need be, but to do a better, nobler thing, God helping me--to live for
him; eschewing other ties, to devote my life and heart to this one
affection. We had wealth, thank God! (I never thanked God for that
before.) We would go to far-off lands as soon as he was able--away from
old sights and scenes, where no familiar object would recall the past,
and where, cut off from all association, we could be all and all to each
other; and, with ardent hope, I commenced immediate preparations for our
voyage. I read him books of travel; showed him the half-finished
garments intended for our journey; purchased all things needful, even to
the books we would read upon the way--richly paid for toilsome endeavor,
for days of patient waiting, if I but roused in him even a passing
interest in the subject, won from him but the shadow of a smile. Ah!
even those days had their gleams of sunshine. I was his only nurse, his
sole dependence, his all; there was exquisite happiness in that! I said
to myself, he is mine now, and always will be; and then I thought of the
fair face so lovingly resting against the weary heart, and grew
exultant, Heaven forgive me! and said, 'Nothing will take him from me
now.' One day he rallied very suddenly. A portion of his old vigor
seemed to animate his frame; something of the old look was in his face.
He took my hand and laid it tenderly against his cheek; he smiled twice
during the morning; I kissed him and said, 'We shall be able to start
soon now, my darling!' The doctor gravely watched us both, but I would
not let his gravity disturb me. He called me to him as he left the room.
As I went out, the dear brown eyes were watching me. I turned to nod and
smile to him, saying blithely, as I joined the doctor, 'Don't you think
we shall be able to start in three weeks, doctor?' 'Shut the door, my
dear,' he said; I had left it ajar. The tone startled me. There was
compassion in it; and I noticed now that he was walking up and down the
room in an agitated way. 'My dear,' he said again, 'you had better take
a seat farther from the door.' His voice was hoarse this time--his tone,
his air, his unwonted tenderness, were ominous. 'What is the matter?' I
said, in sudden fear; 'can't we go as soon as we have intended?'
He did not answer me at first; he walked to the window and looked out;
he turned to me again after a little:
'He is bound on a longer voyage,' he said, with a tremor in his voice;
'he is going to a more distant country.'
I did not start or cry; I did not comprehend the meaning of his words. I
sat silent, looking at him. He came to me, took both my hands in his:
'Hush!' he said; 'don't cry aloud--it would disturb him. But I must tell
you the truth: he won't live three days.' I understood it all now--took
in the _full_ meaning of his dreadful words. I did not cry or faint; I
did not even weep; I thought my heart was bleeding--that the blood was
actually oozing from it drop by drop. I clung to the doctor as I would
to the strong arm of an earthly saviour with wild entreaty, with
passionate appeal. I prayed him to save my darling, as if he held within
his grasp the keys of life and death. I offered all my wealth; I made
unheard-of vows--promised impossible things. In the anguish of my
supplication, I fell at his very feet. 'My dear,' he said, as he raised
me tenderly up again, 'even in this world there is a limit to wealth's
potent power; it is always powerless in a time like this.' I had sunk
into a chair, exhausted by emotion, and chill with dread, my face buried
in my hands despairingly. He laid his hand upon my head in fatherly
compassion: 'It's what we've all got to come to, sooner or later,' he
went on, tremulously. 'As life goes on, our hopes die out one by one;
and, one after another, death claims our treasures. Bow to what is
inevitable; pray for resignation.'
I couldn't--I wouldn't. I prayed for _his_ life, yet in a hopeless,
despairing way. To the All-powerful my soul went out continually in one
wild, desperate cry. I battled fiercely with that stern impending fate,
yet I felt from the first how vainly. Around my poor, wounded, dying
boy, night and day I hovered constantly--I would not leave him for an
instant. Every hour was bearing him away from me--drifting him farther
and farther out into an unknown sea. I crept to his side when I could do
nothing more for him, and laid my head beside his on the pillow.
Sometimes I slept there for very sorrow, grasping him instinctively the
while, seeking even in sleep, with fierce, rebellious will, to stem the
invisible tide of that dark river, and bear him back to life. 'He would
not live three days,' the doctor had said: he _did_ live just _three
days._ It was on the evening of the third, just as the day was fading,
that he called me softly to him. I had opened the window and put back
the curtain, to admit the air and the waning light.
The wind rose as the twilight deepened, waking at intervals in the
gloomy stillness, as if from sleep. It filled the room every now and
then with a sad, sighing sound, then died out slowly, again to swell,
again to fall, sad as the tolling of a funeral knell. He lay listening
to it when I went to him, with parted lips and strange solemnity of
face. Too heart-broken for speech, I knelt beside him with a stifled
moan. 'Magsie,' (that was his pet name for me,) 'I thought it was your
notion, dear, but there is a voice in the wind to-night, and it is
calling me.' I made an effort to answer him, to speak; to tell him at
the last how precious he had always been to me--how inexpressibly dear;
to win from him some parting word of fond endearment that I might
remember always; but the words died out in hoarse, inarticulate murmurs.
'Yes, a voice _is_ calling to me, and it falls through miles and miles
of air; then the wind takes it up and brings it to me. They want me up
there, and I am going, Magsie; kiss me, dear.' The one arm stole around
my neck; the chilled lips met mine in a lingering farewell pressure. He
went on, feebly: 'I have been wild and wayward, Magsie, in the times
gone by; I have grieved your great love sometimes, by giving you a cross
word or look, not meaning it, dear, never meaning it, but because a
perverse mood seized me. Forgive me, dear; don't remember it against me,
sister!' Words came at last; they burst forth in a low moan of anguish:
'My darling! my darling! you break my heart!' Then my poor boy crept
closer to me, in a last fond effort at endearment, and laid his cold
cheek close against my own. The gloom deepened. The form within my clasp
grew cold, became a lifeless weight. I knew it, but I could not lay it
down. I still chafed the pulseless hand, and kissed it, and still I
pressed the poor, maimed, lifeless form closer and closer to my heart,
till reason fled, and I remember nothing. They unwound the chilled arm
from about my neck; they thought I, too, was dead.... With muffled
drumbeat and martial music, with horrid pomp of war, they buried my
darling as soldiers are buried that die at home; but on the grave over
which was fired the parting volley there fell no kindred's tear: I, the
only mourner, lay _raving_ in my room.
Wintry winds have piled the dreary snow above that grave; spring has
kissed it into bloom and verdure; summer skies have smiled above it; and
the maimed form they laid there has melted into nothing _now!_ Time has
softened the despair of my grief--the worst bitterness is past.
Through the gloomy portals of that dark gate of suffering, an unseen
Hand has led me out into a broader and a higher life; and the heart
that held darling _only_, purged from its selfishness by the fierce fire
of affliction, beats now for all humanity. Hearts whose love and
gratitude God has given me the power to win, say, out of the fulness of
their love for me, that a ministering angel is among them in woman's
guise; that no hand is half so lavish in its gifts, no heart so full of
sympathy, no watcher's form so constant beside the couch of pain. The
sick follow me with murmured prayer and blessing; and wounded soldiers
turn to kiss my shadow as I pass. Yet ever as the twilight falls I steal
away to listen to the night wind's moaning, and ever in the gloom I feel
an unseen presence--an arm about my neck--a cheek laid close to mine.
Journeying on the lonely, rugged path of duty, 'following meekly where
His footsteps lead,' I work and wait, and patiently abide my
time--content if, when the welcome summons come, when life's day is
fading, I may feel my darling's face pressed close to my own. He may not
come to me, but I shall go to him, where he may wear his glorified body
forever!