e 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.

And Philip, grown to higher rank,
Crowned with the bays of splendid deeds,
Of the full cup of glory drank,
And lived, though all his reeking steeds
In the red front of conflict sank.

The star of conquest waxed or waned,
Yet still the call came back for men;
Still the lamenting town was drained,
And still again, and still again,
Till only impotence remained!

XXIII.

There came at length an eve of gloom--
Dread Gettysburg's eventful eve--
When all the gathering clouds of doom
Hung low, the breathless air to cleave
With scream of shell and cannon-boom!

Man knew too well; and woman felt,
That when the next-wild morn should rise,
A blow of battle would, be dealt
Before whose fire ten thousand eyes--
As in a furnace flame--would melt.

And on this eve--her flock asleep--
Knelt Mildred at her lonely bed.
She could not pray, she did not weep,
But only moaned, and moaning, said:
"Oh God! he sows what I must reap!

"He will not live: he must not die!
But oh, my poor, prophetic heart!
It warns me that there lingers nigh
The hour when love and I must part!"
And t