The Message

Long shadows toward the east: and in the west A blaze of garnet sunset, wherein rolled One cloud like some great gnarly log of gold; Each gabled casement of the farm seemed dressed In ghosts of roses blossoming manifest.

And she had brought his letter there to read, There on the porch, that faced the locust glade; To watch the summer sunset burn and fade, And breathe the twilight scent of wood and weed, Forget all care and her soul’s hunger feed.

And on his face her fancy mused a while: “Dark hair, dark eyes.--And now he has a beard Dark as his hair.”--She smiled; yet almost feared It changed him so she could not reconcile Her heart to that which hid his lips and smile.

Then tried to feature, but could only see The beardless man who bent to her and kissed Her and their child and left them to enlist: She heard his horse grind in the gravel: he Waved them adieu and rode to fight with Lee.

Now all around her drowsed the hushful hum Of evening insects. And his letter spoke Of love and longings to her: nor awoke One echo of the bugle and the drum, But all their future in one kiss did sum.

The stars were thick now; and the western blush Drained into darkness. With a dreamy sigh She rocked her chair.--It must have been the cry Of infancy that made her rise and rush To where their child slept, and to hug and hush.

Then she returned. But now her ease was gone. She knew not what, she felt an unknown fear Press, tightening, at her heart-strings; then a tear Scalded her eyelids, and her cheeks grew wan As helpless sorrow’s, and her white lips drawn.

With stony eyes she grieved against the skies, A slow, dull, aching agony that knew Few tears, and saw no answer shining to Her silent questions in the stars’ still eyes “Where Peace delays and where her soldier lies.”

They could have told her. Peace was far away, Beyond the field that belched black batteries All the red day. ’Mid picket silences, On woodland mosses, in a suit of gray, Shot through the heart, he by his rifle lay.