"To-morrow is Christmas!"—and clapping his hands,
Little Archie in joyful expectancy stands,
And watches the shadows, now short and now tall,
That momently dance up and down on the wall.

Drawn curtains of crimson shut out the cold night,
And the parlor is pleasant with odours and light;
The soft lamp suspended, its mellowness throws
O'er cluster'd geranium, jasmine and rose;
The sleeping canary hangs caged midst the blooms,
A Sybarite slumberer steeped in perfumes;
For Alice still clings to her birds and her flowers,
Sweet tokens of kindlier, happier hours.

"To-morrow is Christmas!—but Beverly,—say,
Will it do to be glad when Papa is away?"

And the face that is tricksy and blythe as can be,
Tries vainly to temper its shadowless glee.

"For you, pet, I'm sure it is right to be glad;
'Tis a pitiful thing to see little ones sad;
But for Sophy and me, who are older, you know,—
We dare not be glad when we look at the snow!
I shrink from this comfort, this light and this heat,
This plenty to wear, and this plenty to eat,
When the soldiers who fight for us,—die for us,—lie,
With nothing around and above, but the sky;
When their clothes are so light, and the rations they deal,
Are only a morsel of bacon and meal:
And how can I fold my thick blankets around,
When I know that my father's asleep on the ground?
I'm ashamed to be happy, or merry, or free,
As if war and its trials were nothing to me:
Oh! I never can know any frolic or fun,—
Any real, mad romps,—till the battles are done!"
And the face of the boy, so heroic and fair,
Is touched with the singular shadow of care.

Sophy ceases her warbling, subdues her soft mirth,
And draws her low ottoman up to the hearth:

"But, brother, what good would it do to refuse
The comforts and blessings God gives us, or use
Them quite with indifference, as much as to say,
We care not how soon they are taken away!
I am sure I would give my last blanket, and spread
My pretty, blue cloak, at night, over my bed,—
(Mamma, you know, covers herself with her shawl,
Since we've sent all our blankets,)—but, then, it's too small!
Would Papa be less hungry or cold, do you think,
If we had too little to eat or to drink?
So I mean to be busy,—I mean to be glad;
Mamma says there's time enough yet to be sad;
I'll work for the soldiers,—I'll pray, and I'll plan,
And just be as happy as ever I can;
I've made the grey shirt, and I've finished the socks:—
So come, let us help,—they are packing the box."

How grateful the task is to Alice! her cares
Are quite put aside, and her countenance wears

A look of enjoyment as eager, as bright,
As Santa Claus brings little dreamers to-night;
For Douglass away in his camp, is to share
The daintiest cates that her larder can spare.

The turkey, well seasoned, and tenderly browned,
Is flanked by the spiciest a la mode "round;"
The great "priestly ham," in its juiciest pride,
Is there,—with the tenderest surloin beside;
Neat bottles, suggestive of ketchups and wines,
And condiments racy, of various kinds;
And firm rolls of butter as yellow as gold,
And patties and biscuit most rare to behold,
And sauces that richest of odors betray,—
Are marshalled in most appetizing array.
Then Beverly brings of his nuts a full store,
And Archie has apples, a dozen or more;
While Sophy, with gratified housewifery, makes
Her present of spicy "Confederate cakes."

And then in a snug little corner, there lies
A pacquet will brighten the orphan boy's eyes;
For Beverly claims it a pleasure to use
His last cherish'd hoardings in buying him shoes.

Sophy's socks too are there; and she catches afar—
"There's somebody cares for me, Colonel Dunbar!"

What subtlest of essences, sovereign to cheer—
What countless, uncatalogu'd tokens are here!
What lavender'd memories, tenderly green,
Lie hidden, these grosser of viands between!
What food for the heart-life,—unreckon'd, untold—
What manna enclosed in its chalice of gold!
What caskets of sweets that Love only unlocks,—
What mysteries Douglass will find in the box!

The lull of the Winter is over; and Spring
Comes back, as delicious and buoyant a thing,
As airy, and fairy, and lightsome, and bland,
As if not a sorrow was dark'ning the land;—
So little has Nature of passion or part
In the woes and the throes of humanity's heart.

The wild tide of battle runs red,—dashes high,
And blots out the splendour of earth and of sky;
The blue air is heavy, and sulph'rous, and dun,
And the breeze on its wings bears the boom of the gun.
In faster and fiercer and deadlier shocks,
The thunderous billows are hurled on the rocks;
And our Valley becomes, amid Spring's softest breath,
The valley, alas! of the shadow of death.

The crash of the onset,—the plunge and the roll,
Reach down to the depth of each patriot's soul;
It quivers—for since it is human, it must;
But never a tremor of doubt or distrust,
Once blanches the cheek, or is wrung from the mouth,
Or lurks in the eye of the sons of the South.

What need for dismay? Let the live surges roar,
And leap in their fury, our fastnesses o'er,
And threaten our beautiful Valley to fill
With rapine and ruin more terrible still:
What fear we?—See Jackson! his sword in his hand,
Like the stern rocks around him, immovable stand,—
The wisdom, the skill and the strength that he boasts,
Sought ever from him who is Leader of Hosts:
—He speaks in the name of his God:—lo! the tide,—
The red sea of battle, is seen to divide;
The pathway of victory cleaves the dark flood;—
And the foe is o'erwhelmed in a deluge of blood!

The spirit of Alice no longer is bowed
By the troubles, and tumults, and terrors, that crowd
So closely around her:—the willow's lithe form
Bends meekly to meet the wild rush of the storm.

Yet pale as Cassandra, unconscious of joy,
With visions of Greeks at the gates of her Troy,
All day she has waited and watched on the lawn,
Till the purple and gold of the sunset are gone;
For the battle draws near her:—few leagues intervene
Her home and that Valley of slaughter, between.

The tidings and rumors come thick and come fast,
As riders fly hotly and breathlessly past;
They tell of the onslaught,—the headlong attack
Of the foe with a quadruple force at his back:
They boast how they hurl themselves,—shiver and fall
Before their stout rampart, the valiant "Stonewall."

At length, with the gradual fading of day,—
The tokens of battle are floated away:

The booming no longer makes sullen the air,
And the silence of night seems as holy as prayer.

Gray shadows still linger the beeches among,
And scarce has the earliest matin been sung,
Ere Alice with Beverly pale at her side,
Yet firm as his mother, is ready to ride.

With sympathy, womanly, tender, divine,—
With lint and with bandage, with bread and with wine,—
She hastes to the battle-field, eager to bear
Relief to the wounded and perishing there:
To breathe, like an angel of mercy, the breath
Of peace over brows that are fainting in death.

She dares not to stir with a question, her woe,
One word,—and the bitter-brimm'd heart would o'erflow:
But speechless, and moveless, and stony of eye,
Scarce conscious of aught in the earth or the sky,
In a swoon of the heart, all her senses have reeled,—
But she prays for endurance,—for here is the field.

The flight and pursuit, so harassing, so hot,
Have drifted all combatants far from the spot:
And through the sparse woodlands, and over the plain,
Lie gorily scattered, the wounded and slain.
Oh! the sickness,—the shudder,—the quailing of fear,
As it leaps to her lips,—"What if Douglass be here!"

Yet she frames not a question; her spirit can bear
Oh! anything,—all things, but hopeless despair:
Does her darling lie stretched on the slope of yon hill?
Let her doubt—let her hug the suspense, if she will!

She watches each ambulance-burden with dread;
She loots in the faces of dying and dead:
And hour after hour, with steady control,
She bends to her task all the strength of her soul;
She comforts the wounded with pity's sweet care,
And the spirit that's passing, she speeds with her prayer.

She starts as she hears, from her stout-hearted boy,
A wild exclamation, half doubt and half joy:—

"Oh! Surgeon!—some brandy! he's fainting!—Ah! now
The colour comes back to his cheek and his brow:—
He breathes again—speaks again—listen!—you are
'An orderly'—is it?—'of Colonel Dunbar?'
'He fought like a lion!' (I knew it!) and passed
Untouched through the battle, 'unhurt to the last?'
—My father is safe,—mother!—safe!—what a joy!
And here is Macpherson,—our barefooted boy!"

Poor Alice!—her grief has been tearless and dumb,
But the pressure once lifted, her senses succumb:
Too quick the revulsion,—too glad the surprise,—
The mists of unconsciousness curtain her eyes:
'Tis only a moment they suffer eclipse,
And words of thanksgiving soon thrill on her lips.

To Beechenbrook's quiet, with tenderest care,
They hasten the wounded, wan soldier to bear;
And never hung mother more patiently o'er
The couch of the child, her own bosom that bore,
Than Alice above the lone orphan, who lay
Submissively breathing his spirit away.

He knows that existence is ebbing; his brain
Is lucid and calm, in the pauses of pain;
But his round boyish cheek with no weeping is wet,
And his smile is not touched with a shade of regret.

No murmur is uttered—no lingering sigh
Escapes him;—so young,—yet so willing to die!
His garment of flesh he has worn undefiled,
His faith is the beautiful faith of a child:
He knows that the Crucified hung on the tree,
That the pathway to bliss might be open and free:
He believes that the cup has been drained,—he can find
Not a drop of the wrath that had filled it,—behind.
If ever a doubt or misgiving assails,
His finger he puts on the print of the nails;
If sometimes there springs an emotion of fear,
He lays his cold hand on the mark of the spear!
He thinks of his darling, dead mother;—the light
Of the Heavenly City falls full on his sight:
And under the rows of the palms, by the brim
Of the river—he knows she is waiting for him.

But the present comes back;—and on Alice's ear,
Fall whispers like these, as she pauses to hear:

"Only a private;—and who will care
When I may pass away,—
Or how, or why I perish, or where
I mix with the common clay?
They will fill my empty place again,
With another as bold and brave;
And they'll blot me out, ere the Autumn rain
Has freshened my nameless grave.

Only a private:—it matters not,
That I did my duty well;
That all through a score of battles I fought,
And then, like a soldier, fell:
The country I died for,—never will heed
My unrequited claim;
And history cannot record the deed,
For she never has heard my name.

Only a private;—and yet I know,
When I heard the rallying call,
I was one of the very first to go,
And ... I'm one of the many who fall:
But, as here I lie, it is sweet to feel,
That my honor's without a stain;—
That I only fought for my Country's weal,
And not for glory or gain.

Only a private;—yet He who reads
Through the guises of the heart,
Looks not at the splendour of the deeds,
But the way we do our part;
And when He shall take us by the hand,
And our small service own,
There'll a glorious band of privates stand
As victors around the throne!"

The breath of the morning is heavy and chill,
And gloomily lower the mists on the hill:
The winds through the beeches are shivering low,
With a plaintive and sad miserere of woe:
A quiet is over the Cottage,—a dread
Clouds the children's sweet faces,—Macpherson is dead!

'Tis Autumn,—and Nature the forest has hung
With arras more gorgeous than ever was flung
From Gobelin looms,—all so varied, so rare,
As never the princeliest palaces were.
Soft curtains of haze the far mountains enfold,
Whose warp is of purple, whose woof is of gold,
And the sky bends as peacefully, purely above,
As if earth breathed an atmosphere only of love.

But thick as white asters in Autumn, are found
The tents all bestrewing the carpeted ground;
The din of a camp, with its stir and its strife,
Its motley and strange, multitudinous life,
Floats upward along the brown slopes, till it fills
The echoing hollows afar in the hills.

'Tis the twilight of Sabbath,—and sweet through the air,
Swells the blast of the bugle, that summons to prayer:
The signal is answered, and soon in the glen
Sits Colonel Dunbar in the midst of his men.

The Chaplain advances with reverent face,
Where lies a felled oak, he has chosen his place;
On the stump of an ash-tree the Bible he lays,
And they bow on the grass, as he solemnly prays.

Underneath thine open sky,
Father, as we bend the knee,
May we feel thy presence nigh,
—Nothing 'twixt our souls and thee!

We are weary,—cares and woes
Lay their weight on every breast,
And each heart before thee knows,
That it sighs for inward rest.

Thou canst lift this weight away,
Thou canst bid these sighings cease;
Thou canst walk these waves and say
To their restless tossings—"Peace!"

We are tempted;—snares abound,—
Sin its treacherous meshes weaves;
And temptations strew us round,
Thicker than the Autumn leaves.

Midst these perils, mark our path,
Thou who art 'the life, the way;'
Rend each fatal wile that hath
Power to lead our souls astray.

Prince of Peace! we follow Thee!
Plant thy banner in our sight;
Let thy shadowy legions be
Guards around our tents to-night."

Through the aisles of the forest, far-stretching and dim
As a cloister'd Cathedral, the notes of a hymn
Float tenderly upward,—now soft and now clear,
As if twilight had silenced its breathing to hear;
Now swelling, a lofty, triumphant refrain,—
Now sobbing itself into sadness again.

The Bible is opened, and stillness profound
Broods over the listeners scattered around;
And warning, and comfort, and blessing, and balm,
Distil from the beautiful words of the Psalm.
Then simply and earnestly pleading,—his face
Lit up with persuasive and eloquent grace,
The Chaplain pours forth, from the warmth of his heart,
His words of entreaty and truth, ere they part.

"I see before me valiant men,
With courage high and true,
Who fight as only heroes fight,
And die, as heroes do.

Your serried ranks have never quailed
Before the battle-shock,
Whose maddest fury beats and breaks
Like foam against the rock.

Ye've borne the deadly brunt of war,
Through storm, and cold, and heat,
Yet never have ye turned your backs
Nor fled before defeat.

Behind you lie your cheerful homes,
And all of sweet or fair,—
The only remnants earth has left
Of Eden-life, are there.

Ye know that many a once bright cheek
Consuming care, makes wan;
Ye know the old, dear happiness
That blest your hearths,—is gone.

Ye see your comrades smitten down,—
The young, the good, the brave,—
Ye feel, the turf ye tread to-day,
May be to-morrow's grave.

Yet not a murmur meets the ear,
Nor discontent has sway,
And not a sullen brow is seen,
Through all the camp to-day.

No Greek, in Greece's palmiest days,
His javelin ever threw,
Impelled by more heroic zeal,
Or nobler aim than you.

No mailed warrior ever bore
Aloft his shining lance,
More proudly through the tales that fire
The page of old romance.

Oh! soldiers!—well ye bear your part;
The world awards its praise:
Be sure,—this grandest tourney o'er,—
'Twill crown you with its bays!

But there's sublimer work than even
To free your native sod;
—Ye may be loyal to your land,
Yet traitors to your God!

No Moslem heaven for him who falls,
A bribed requital doles;
And while ye save your country,—ye,
Alas! may lose your souls!

No glorious deeds can urge their claim,—
No merits, entrance win,—
The pierced hand of Christ alone,
Must freely let you in.

Oh! sirs!—there lurks a fiercer foe,
Than this that treads your soil,
Who springs from unseen ambuscades,
To drag you as his spoil.

He drugs the heedless conscience, till,
No wary watch it keeps,
And parleys with the treacherous heart,
While fast the warder sleeps.

He captive leads the wavering will
With specious words, and fair,
And enters the beleaguered soul,
And rules, a conqueror there.

Will ye who fling defiance forth,
Against a temporal foe,
And rather die, than stoop to wear
The chains that gall you so,—

Will ye succumb beneath a power,
That grasps at full control,
And binds its helpless victims down
In servitude of soul?

Nay,—act like brave men, as ye are,—
Nor let the despot, sin,
Wrest those immortal rights away,
Which Christ has died to win.

For Heaven—best home—true fatherland,
Bear toil, reproach and loss,
Your highest honor,—holiest name,—
The soldiers of the Cross!

"My Douglass! my darling!—there once was a time,
When we to each other confessed the sublime
And perfect sufficiency love could bestow,
On the hearts that have learned its completeness to know;
We felt that we too had a well-spring of joy,
That earthly convulsions could never destroy,—
A mossy, sealed fountain, so cool and so bright,
It could solace the soul, let it thirst as it might.

"'Tis easy, while happiness strews in our path,
The richest and costliest blessings it hath,
'Tis easy to say that no sorrow, no pain,
Could utterly beggar our spirits again;
'Tis easy to sit in the sunshine, and speak
Of the darkness and storm, with a smile on the cheek!

"As hungry and cold, and with weariness spent,
You droop in your saddle, or crouch in your tent;
Can you feel that the love so entire, so true,
The love that we dreamed of,—is all things to you?
That come what there may,—desolation or loss,
The prick of the thorn, or the weight of the cross—
You can bear it,—nor feel you are wholly bereft,
While the bosom that beats for you only, is left?
While the birdlings are spared that have made it so blest,
Can you look, undismayed, on the wreck of the nest?

"There's a love that is tenderer, sweeter than this—
That is fuller of comfort, and blessing, and bliss;
That never can fail us, whatever befall—
Unchanging, unwearied, undying, through all:
We have need of the support—the staff and the rod;—
Beloved! we'll lean on the bosom of God!

"You guess what I fain would keep hidden:—you know,
Ere now, that the trail of the insolent foe
Leaves ruin behind it, disastrous and dire,
And burns through our Valley, a pathway of fire.
—Our beautiful home,—as I write it, I weep,
Our beautiful home is a smouldering heap!
And blackened, and blasted, and grim, and forlorn,
Its chimneys stand stark in the mists of the morn!

"I stood in my womanly helplessness, weak—
Though I felt a brave color was kindling my cheek—
And I plead by the sacredest things of their lives—
By the love that they bore to their children,—their wives,
By the homes left behind them, whose joys they had shared,
By the God that should judge them,—that mine should be spared.

"As well might I plead with the whirlwind to stay
As it crashingly cuts through the forest its way!
I know that my eye flashed a passionate ire,
As they scornfully flung me their answer of—fire!

"Why harrow your heart with the grief and the pain?
Why paint you the picture that's scorching my brain?
Why speak of the night when I stood on the lawn,
And watched the last flame die away in the dawn?
'Tis over,—that vision of terror,—of woe!
Its horrors I would not recall;—let them go!
I am calm when I think what I suffered them for;
I grudge not the quota I pay to the war!

"But, Douglass!—deep down in the core of my heart,
There's a throbbing, an aching, that will not depart;
For memory mourns, with a wail of despair,
The loss of her treasures,—the subtle, the rare,
Precious things over which she delighted to pore,
Which nothing,—ah! nothing, can ever restore!

"The rose-covered porch, where I sat as your bride—
The hearth, where at twilight I leaned at your side—
The low-cushioned window-seat, where I would lie,
With my head on your knee, and look out on the sky:—
The chamber all holy with love and with prayer,
The motherhood memories clustering there—
The vines that your hand has delighted to train,
The trees that you planted;—Oh! never again
Can love build us up such a bower of bliss;
Oh! never can home be as hallow'd as this!

"Thank God! there's a dwelling not builded with hands,
Whose pearly foundation, immovable stands;
There struggles, alarms, and disquietudes cease,
And the blissfulest balm of the spirit is—peace!
Small trial 'twill seem when our perils are past,
And we enter the house of our Father at last,—
Light trouble, that here, in the night of our stay,
The blast swept our wilderness lodging away!

"The children—dear hearts!—it is touching to see
My Beverly's beautiful kindness to me;
So buoyant his mein—so heroic—resigned—
The boy has the soul of his father, I find!
Not a childish complaint or regret have I heard,—
Not even from Archie, a petulant word:
Once only—a tear moistened Sophy's bright cheek:
'Papa has no home now!'—'twas all she could speak.

"A stranger I wander midst strangers; and yet
I never,—no, not for a moment forget
That my heart has a home,—just as real, as true,
And as warm as if Beechenbrook sheltered me too.
God grant that this refuge from sorrow and pain—
This blessedest haven of peace, may remain!
And, then, though disaster, still sharper, befall,
I think I can patiently bear with it all:
For the rarest, most exquisite bliss of my life
Is wrapped in a word, Douglass ... I am your wife!"

When fierce and fast-thronging calamities rush
Resistless as destiny o'er us, and crush
The life from the quivering heart till we feel
Like the victim whose body is broke on the wheel—
When we think we have touched the far limit at last,
—One throe, and the point of endurance is passed—
When we shivering hang on the verge of despair—
There still is capacity left us to bear.

The storm of the winter, the smile of the Spring,
No respite, no pause, and no hopefulness bring;
The demon of carnage still breathes his hot breath,
And fiercely goes forward the harvest of death.

Days painfully drag their slow burden along;
And the pulse that is beating so steady and strong,
Stands still, as there comes, from the echoing shore
Of the winding and clear Rappahannock, the roar
Of conflict so fell, that the silvery flood
Runs purple and rapid and ghastly with blood.

—Grand army of martyrs!—though victory waves
Them onward, her march must be over their graves:
They feel it—they know it,—yet steadier each
Close phalanx moves into the desperate breach:
Their step does not falter—their faith does not yield,—
For yonder, supreme o'er the fiercely-fought field,
Erect in his leonine grandeur, they see
The proud and magnificent calmness of Lee!

'Tis morn—but the night has brought Alice no rest:
The roof seems to press like a weight on her breast;
And she wanders forth, wearily lifting her eye,
To seek for relief 'neath the calm of the sky.

The air of the forest is spicy and sweet,
And dreamily babbles a brook at her feet;
Her children are 'round her, and sunshine and flowers,
Try vainly to banish the gloom of the hours.
With a volume she fain her wild thoughts would assuage,
But her vision can trace not a line on the page,
And the poet's dear strains, once so soft to her ear,
Have lost all their mystical power to cheer.

The evening approaches—the pressure—the woe
Grows drearer and heavier,—yet she must go,
And stifle between the dead walls, as she may,
The heart that scarce breathed in the free, open day.

She reaches the dwelling that serves as her home;
A horseman awaits at the entrance;—the foam
Is flecking the sides of his fast-ridden steed,
Who pants, over-worn with exhaustion and speed;
And Alice for support to Beverly clings,
As the soldier delivers the letter he brings.

Her ashy lips move, but the words do not come,
And she stands in her whiteness, bewildered and dumb:
She turns to the letter with hopeless appeal,
But her fingers are helpless to loosen the seal:
She lifts her dim eyes with a look of despair,—
Her hands for a moment are folded in prayer;
The strength she has sought is vouchsafed in her need:
—"I think I can bear it now, Beverly .., read."

The boy, with the resolute nerve of a man,
And a voice which he holds as serene as he can,
Takes quietly from her the letter, and reads:—

"Dear Madam,—My heart in its sympathy bleeds
For the pain that my tidings must bear you: may God
Most tenderly comfort you, under His rod!

"This morning, at daybreak, a terrible charge
Was made on the enemy's centre: such large
And fresh reinforcements were held at his back,
He stoutly and stubbornly met the attack.

"Our cavalry bore themselves splendidly:—far
In front of his line galloped Colonel Dunbar;
Erect in his stirrups,—his sword flashing high,
And the look of a conqueror kindling his eye,
His silvery voice rang aloft through the roar
Of the musketry poured from the opposite shore:
—'Remember the Valley!—remember your wives!
And on to your duty, boys!—on—with your lives!'

"He turned, and he paused, as he uttered the call—
Then reeled in his seat, and fell,—pierced by a ball.

"He lives and he breathes yet:—the surgeons declare,
That the balance is trembling 'twixt hope and despair.
In his blanket he lies, on the hospital floor,—
So calm, you might deem all his agony o'er;
And here, as I write, on his face I can see
An expression whose radiance is startling to me.
His faith is sublime:—he relinquishes life,
And craves but one blessing,—to look on his wife!"

The Chaplain's recital is ended:—no word
From Alice's white, breathless lips has been heard;
Till, rousing herself from her passionless woe,
She simply and quietly says—"I will go."

There are moments of anguish so deadly, so deep—
That numbness seems over the senses to creep,
With interposition, whose timely relief,
Is an anodyne-draught to the madness of grief.
Such mercy is meted to Alice;—her eye
That sees as it saw not, is vacant and dry:
The billows' wild fury sweeps over her soul,
And she bends to the rush with a passive control.

Through the dusk of the night—through the glare of the day,
She urges, unconscious, her desolate way:
One image is ever her vision before,
—That blanketed form on the hospital floor!

Her journey is ended; and yonder she sees
The spot where he lies, looming white through the trees:
Her torpor dissolves with a shuddering start,
And a terrible agony clutches her heart.

The Chaplain advances to meet her:—he draws
Her silently onward;—no question—no pause—
Her finger she lays on her lip;—if she spake,
She knows that the spell that upholds her, would break.

She has strength to go forward; they enter the door,—
And there, on the crowded and blood-tainted floor,
Close wrapped in his blanket, lies Douglass:—his brow
Wore never a look so seraphic as now!
She stretches her arms the dear form to enfold,—
God help her!..., she shrieks..., it is silent and cold!