The moans of the dying,--the horror, the dread,
The ghastliness gathering over the dead,--
Oh! these are the visions of anguish and pain,--
The phantoms of terror that troop through her brain!

She pauses again and again on the floor,
Which the moonlight has brightened so mockingly o'er;
She wrings her cold hands with a groan of despair;
--"Oh, God! have compassion!--my darling is there!"

All placidly, dewily, freshly, the dawn
Comes stealing in pulseless tranquility on:
More freely she breathes, in its balminess, though
The forehead it kisses is pallid with woe.

Through the long summer sunshine the Cottage is stirred
By passers, who brokenly fling them a word:
Such tidings of slaughter! "The enemy cowers;"--
"He breaks!"--"He is flying!"--"Manassas is ours!"

'Tis evening: and Archie, alone on the grass,
Sits watching the fire-flies gleam as they pass,
When sudden he rushes, too eager to wait,--
"Mamma! there's an ambulance stops at the gate!"

Suspense then is past: he is borne from the field,--
"God help me!... God grant it be _not_ on his shield!"
And Alice, her passionate soul in her eyes,
And hope and fear winging each quicken'd step, flies,--
Embraces, with frantical wildness, the form