114. Is'bel Steele.
by Mary E. Nealy.
”See, Auntie! the camp-fires gleamingLike fire-flies on the hill;
Do not the red lights streaming
Send through your heart a thrill--
A thrill of the days of danger,
When you, dear Aunt, were young--
When out in the West a stranger,
Your heart with grief was wrung--
When the ties of sister and brother,
Of husband and of wife,
Each woman's soul did smother
To aid in the fearful strife.
”Oh! tell, Aunt Is'bel, tell us
Of those dangerous days of yore;
It will make the hearts within us
Beat stronger than before.
It will nerve our quivering voices
To speak their sad “Good-by;”
It will keep our forms from quaking,
And will keep our eye-lids dry;
It will lend a strength to the sorrow
That fills our souls to-night,
For the dear ones who on the morrow
Must go from us to fight.“
“O girls! the times have altered
So much since I was young!”
And her quivering accents faltered,
As a tear aside she flung:
“We then had no time for weeping,
But women and men must work;
And we snatched our turns for sleeping,
And none had a chance to shirk;
For soft in the solemn midnight
The sneaking foe would come,
To kindle a fire for their war-dance
Of our woman-guarded home.
“For our husbands, fathers, and brothers
Would leave us alone in the fort--
Alone with our babes and mothers,
And we'd say it was but sport!
For we knew they must help our neighbors
At the fort eight miles away.
And we knew that some might ne'er get back
From the fierce and savage fray.
But ‘ do as ye would be done by,’
Was law in these olden days;
So we swallowed the choking in our throats,
And went on our busy ways.
”I think, girls, I never told you
Of the time my Harry went;
But some of you'll feel to-morrow
As I felt when he was sent.
Yet, oh! may the God of battles
Save every one the pain
I felt, and sometimes feel even now,
For he came not back again!
He was slain by the savage red men,
And scalped — all his dark-brown curls!
That I am still lone Is'bel Steele,
Do you wonder now, sweet girls?
”Ay, the girls of those times had courage,
And I think they have it now!
Though they do not need to toil so hard,
They can soothe the fevered brow.
And the men — are as keen for fighting
Could they find the fight to do;
But they chafe and fret at a soldier's life,
That is a la grande Revue!
And they feel the want of a spirit
That is free from selfish aims,
To lead them to crush the monster,
And to quench these smouldering flames.
”Oh would that our God would give us
A man, half Washington!
How soon would we hear the tidings
That the bloody work was done.
Though it cost the heads of traitors,
And loyal blood beside,
Let it flow, if it opes the portals
Of freedom, far and wide.
Let it flow in a crimson torrent,
And then — take off the yoke,
And say to Earth's sneering nations:
the Rusted Chain is broke!“
Indianapolis, 1862.
