far from home and kindred, robbed of all life's dearest ties,
With the eager eyes out-gazing but to meet with stranger eyes.

It were sweet to fall, my mother, with the battle raging round,
And to leap from earth to heaven at a single patriot-bound;
It were sweet to feel that glory would check the tears of woe--
That o'er hearts whose griefs were deepest a gush of pride would flow.

But to lie at night, dear mother, and to list the warder's tread,
As it falls upon my heart, I seem a prisoner with the dead;
And I long to lose my sense of pain, to find a calm release,
And to sink each vain, vain longing, in a silent sea of peace.

Oh, could I see, dear mother, the dog that guards our door,
It would make each life throb at my heart beat quicker than before;
And the nursing of your own dear hands, the breath of our old hills,
Would send a flood of fresh life back through all these draining rills.

But it may not be, loved mother: I must die here, all alone;
Where, a hundred faces round me, not a single one is known;
With the human heart within me hungering, like a wounded dove,
For the soft glance of my mother, and her dear home-words of love.

Oh, the heart of man, loved mother, is as dauntless as a rock
In a time of mortal danger--in the battle's deadly shock;
But alone--alone and dying, how he craves affection's ties--
Craves a woman's strength in weakness, and the lovelight in her eyes!

Oh, the dreams, the dreams, my mother, that have vanished from my sky,
Like the misty mountain vapors that before the sunlight fly--
All the golden dreams of glory, with their rainbow tints of fame,
That would link with deeds of valor my bright, my deathless name!

Where are they now, dear mother? Like a mirage of the plain,
Like a bubble on the ocean, like a jewel on the main,
Like the sweetest flowers of autumn, when they feel the biting frost,
All those glorious aspirations--they are lost, forever lost!

Yet if I could live, my mother, I know I still should go
And help to rid our country of her fratricidal foe;
For you have taught me, long ago, that he was no true man
Who would not, in a time like this, step forward with the van.

And though I leave, my mother, no laurel crown of fame,
There is not linked with my past life a single breath of shame;
And though I ne'er shall see your fa