LM OF WOMAN.

BY LIEUT. RICHARD REALF.

Down all the shining lapse of days
That grow and grow forever
In truer love and better praise
Of the Almighty Giver--
Whatever God-like impulses
Have blossomed in the human,
The most divine and fair of these
Sprang from the soul of woman.

Her heart it is preserves the flower
Of sacrificial duty,
Which, blown across the blackest hour,
Transfigures it to beauty;
Her hands that streak these solemn years
With vivifying graces,
And crown the foreheads of our fears
With light from higher places.

O wives and mothers, sanctified
By holy consecrations,
Turning our weariness aside
With blessed ministrations!
O maidens, in whose dewy eyes
Perennial comforts glitter,
Untangling War's dark mysteries
And making sweet the bitter;--

In desolate paths, on dangerous posts,
By places which, to-morrow,
Shall be unto these bannered hosts
Aceldemas of sorrow,
We hear the sound of helping feet,
We feel your soft caressings;
And all our life starts up to greet
Your lovingness with blessings!

On cots of pain, on beds of woe,
Where stricken heroes languish,
Wan faces smile and sick hearts grow
Triumphant over anguish;
While souls that starve in lonely gloom
Flush green with odorous praises,
And all the lowly pallets bloom
With Gratitude's white daisies.

O lips that from our wounds have sucked
The fever and the burning!
O tender fingers that have plucked
The madness from our mourning!
O hearts that beat so loyal-true
For soothing and for saving--
God send your own hopes back to you,
Crowned with immortal having!

Thank God!--O Love! whereby we know
Beyond our little seeing,
And feel serene compassions flow
Around the ache of being;--
Lo! clear o'er all the pain and dread
Of our most sore affliction,
The shining wings of Peace are spread
In brooding benediction!

* * * * *

We have been requested by the author of 'Hannah Thurston,' an article in
our April number, to correct a typographical error (the omission of the
word _all_) in said article. The mutilated sentence originally read: "I
cannot think that marriage is essential to, or even best for, the
happiness of _all_ women."

ED. CON

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No.