"The rose-covered porch, where I sat as your bride-- The hearth, where at twilight I leaned at your side-- The low-cushioned window-seat, where I would lie, With my head on your knee, and look out on the sky:-- The chamber all holy with love and with prayer, The motherhood memories clustering there-- The vines that _your_ hand has delighted to train, The trees that _you_ planted;--Oh! never again Can love build us up such a bower of bliss; Oh! never can home be as hallow'd as this! "Thank God! there's a dwelling not builded with hands, Whose pearly foundation, immovable stands; There struggles, alarms, and disquietudes cease, And the blissfulest balm of the spirit is--peace! Small trial 'twill seem when our perils are past, And we enter the house of our Father at last,-- Light trouble, that here, in the night of our stay, The blast swept our wilderness lodging away! "The children--dear hearts!--it is touching to see My Beverly's beautiful kindness to me; So buoyant his mein--so heroic--resigned-- The boy has the soul of his father, I find! Not a childish complaint or regret have I heard,-- Not even from Archie, a petulant word: Once only--a tear moistened Sophy's bright cheek: '_Papa has no home now!_'--'twas all she could speak. "A stranger I wander midst strangers; and yet I never,--no, not for a moment forget That my heart has a home,--just as real, as true, And as warm as if Beechenbrook sheltered me too. God grant that this refuge from sorrow and pain-- This blessedest haven of peace, may remain! And, then, though disaster, still sharper, befall, I think I can patiently bear with it all: For the rarest, most exquisite bliss of my life Is wrapped in a word, Douglass ... I am your wife!" IX. When fierce and fast-thronging calamities rush Resistless as destiny o'er us, and crush The life from the quivering heart till we feel Like the victim whose body is broke on the wheel-- When we think we have touched the far limit at last, --One throe, and the point of endurance is passed-- When we shivering hang on the verge of despair-- There still is capacity left us to bear. The storm of the winter, the smile of the Spring, No respite, no pause, and no hopefulness bring; The demon of carnage still breathes his hot breath, And fiercely goes forward the harvest of death. Days painfully drag their slow burden along; And the pulse that is beating so steady and strong, Stands still, as there comes, from the echoing shore Of the winding and clear Rappahannock, the roar Of conflict so fell, that the silvery flood Runs purple and rapid and ghastly with blood.