While the long sacrifice of woman's days
Passes without a thought, without a word:
And many a holy struggle for the sake
Of duty, _sternly_, _faithfully_ fulfil'd;
For which the anxious soul must watch and wait,
Goes by unheeded as the summer wind,
And leaves no _memory_, and no trace behind!
Yet, it may be, more lofty courage dwells
In one meek heart that braves an adverse fate,
Than his whose ardent soul indignant swells,
Warmed by the fight, or cheered through high debate.
The soldier dies surrounded; could he _live
Alone_ to suffer, and alone to strive?"

So was rendered the sad soul-music of one of the legion,

"Who learned in sorrow
What they taught in song."

and the weird words have been echoed by the voice of many a woman all
along, whose weary wanderings have burned the sacrificial fires; amid the
ashes of whose dead hopes the embers have flickered and faded only to
rekindle the lurid, lustrous light of added, and still added offerings.
There, waiting and watching the deep tracery "upon the sands beside the
sounding sea," find wave after wave wash away the mystic hand-writing.

The ebbing tide carries afar the ships freighted with aching, anguished
hearts; when borne upon the swell of the flowing sea, come the swift sails
of Argosies richly laden with hope, full with fruition.