She stood by the good old surgeon’s side, And the sufferers smiled as they saw her stand; She wrote, and the mothers marvelled and cried At their darling soldiers’ feminine hand. She was last in the ward when the lights burned low, And sleep called a truce to his foeman Pain; At the midnight cry she was first to go, To bind up the bleeding wound again. For sometimes the wreck of a man would rise, Weird and gaunt in the watch-lamp’s gleam, And tear away bandage and splints and ties, Fighting the battle all o’er in his dream. No wonder the youngest surgeon felt A charm in the presence of that brave soul, Through weary weeks, as she nightly knelt With the letter from home or the doctor’s dole. He heard her called, and he heard her blessed, With many a patriot’s parting breath; And ere his soul to itself confessed, Love leaped to life in those vigils of death. “Oh, fly to your home!” came a whisper dread, “For now the pestilence walks by night.” “The greater the need of me here,” she said, And bared her arm for the lancet’s bite. Was there death, green death, in the atmosphere? Was the bright steel poisoned? Who can tell! Her weeping friends gathered beside her bier, And the clergyman told them all was well. Well--alas that it should be so! When a nation’s debt reaches reckoning-day-- Well for it to be able, but woe To the generation that’s called to pay! Down from the long gray hospital came Every boy in blue who could walk the floor; The sick and the wounded, the blind and the lame, Formed two long files from her father’s door. There was grief in many a manly breast, While men’s tears fell as the coffin passed; And thus she went to the world of rest, Martial and maidenly up to the last. And that youngest surgeon, was he to blame?-- He held the lancet--Heaven only knows. No matter; his heart broke all the same, And he laid him down, and never arose. So Death received, in his greedy hand, Two precious coins of the awful price That purchased freedom for this dear land-- For master and bondman--yea, bought it twice. Such fates too often such women are for! God grant the Republic a large increase, To match the heroes in time of war, And mother the children in time of peace. [Illustration] [Illustration] GLORY HALLELUJAH! OR, JOHN BROWN’S BODY.