80. the Virginia mother.
by Edna Dean Proctor.
My home is drear and still to-night,Where Shenandoah murmuring flows;
The Blue Ridge towers in the pale moonlight,
And balmily the south wind blows;
But my fire burns dim, while athwart the wall
Black as the pines the shadows fall;
And the only friend within my door
Is the sleeping hound on the moonlit floor.
Roll back, O weary years! and bring
Again the gay and cloudless morn,
When every bird was on the wing,
And my blithe summer boys were born!
My Courtney fair, my Philip bold,
With his laughing eyes and his locks of gold!
No nested bird in the valley wide
Sang as my heart that eventide.
Our laurels blush when May winds call,
Our pines shoot high through mellow showers;
So rosy flushed, so slender tall,
My boys grew up from childhood's hours.
Glad in the breeze, the sun, the rain,
They climbed the heights or they roamed the plain;
And found where the fox lay hid at noon,
And the sly fawn drank by the rising moon.
O Storm! look up; you ne'er may hear,
When all the dewy glades are still,
In silver windings, fine and clear,
Their whistle stealing o'er the hill;
And fly to the shade where the wild deer rest
Ere morn has reddened the mountain's crest;
Nor sit at their feet, when the chase is o'er,
And the antlers hang by the sunset door.
What drew our hunters from the hills?
They heard the stormy trumpets blow;
And leapt adown like April rills
When Shenandoah roars below.
One to the field where the old flag shines;
And one, alas! to the traitor lines!
My tears-their fond arms round me thrown--
And the house was hushed and the hill-side lone.
But oh! to feel my boys were foes
Was more than loss or battle's steel!
In every shifting cloud that rose
I saw their hostile squadrons wheel;
And heard in the waves as they hurried by,
Their hasty tread when the fight was nigh,
And, deep in the wail which the night-winds bore,
Their dying moan when the fight was o'er.
[66] So time went on. The skies were blue;
Our wheat-fields yellow in the sun;
When down the vale a rider flew:
“Ho! neighbors, Gettysburgh is won!
Horse and foot, at the cannon's mouth
We hurled them back to the hungry South;
The North is safe, and the vile marauder
Curses the hour he crossed the border.”
My boys were there! I nearer pressed--
“And Philip, Courtney, what of them?”
His voice dropped low: “O madam! rest
Falls sweet when battle's tide we stem:
Your Philip was first of the brave that day
With his colors grasped as in death he lay:
And Courtney-well, I only knew
Not a man was left of his rebel crew”
. . . . . .
My home is drear and still to-night,
Where Shenandoah murmuring flows;
The Blue Ridge towers in the pale moonlight,
And balmily the south wind blows;
But my fire burns dim, while athwart the wall
Black as the pines the shadows fall;
And the only friend within my door
Is the sleeping hound on the moonlit floor.
Yet still in dreams my boys I own:
They chase the deer o'er dewy hills,
Their hair by mountain winds is blown,
Their shout the echoing valley fills,
Wafts from the woodland spring sunshine
Comes as they open this door of mine;
And I hear them sing by the evening blaze
The songs they sang in the vanished days.
I cannot part their lives and say,
“This was the traitor, this the true;”
God only knows why one should stray,
And one go pure death's portals through.
They have passed from their mother's clasp and care;
But my heart ascends in the yearning prayer
That His large love will the two enfold--
My Courtney fair and my Philip bold!
