But something choked my singing down,
Deeper than any song expressed.--
Is it a cross, or is it a crown
On my brow invisibly pressed!

Out of the east the star-watch shines,
Lighting their camp-fires in the gray;
I count their white tents' lengthening lines,
And think of those who are far away.

Where the yellow globes of the orange grow
In the southern fields-that slope to the sun,--
Oh say, have my brothers met the foe,--
Has another Shiloh been lost or won?

For when the moonlight falls across
The threshold of our cottage door.
My heart is full of a sense of loss,
As if they would return no more.

Last year when the April days were fair,
And the harvest fields were ploughed and sown,
Two stalwart boys took each his share,
But now our father toils alone.

And often at our evening prayers,
With an absence I can understand,
I see him look at the vacant chairs,
And wipe his brow with his wrinkled hand.