3. “O, if a woman could only find Other work than to wait behind, Through midnight dew and noonday drouth,— To wait behind, and fear, and pray! O, if a soldier’s wife could say,— ‘Where thou goest, I will go; Kiss thee ere thou meet’st the foe; Where thou lodgest, worst or best, Share and soothe thy broken rest!’ —Alas, to stifle her pain, and wait, This was ever a woman’s fate! But the lonely hours at least may be Passed a little nearer thee, And the city thou guardest with thy life Thou’lt guard more fondly for holding thy wife.” 4. Ah, tender heart of woman leal, Supple as wax and strong as steel! Thousands as faithful and as lone, Following each some dearest one, Found in those early months a home Under the brightness of that dome Whose argent arches for aye enfold The hopes of a people in their hold,— Irradiate, in the sight of all Who guard the Capital’s outer wall. Lastly came one, amid the rest, Whose form a sunburnt soldier prest, As lovers embrace in respite lent From unfulfilled imprisonment. And Alice found a new content: Dearer for perils that had been Were short-lived meetings, far between; Better, for dangers yet to be, The moments she still his face could see. These, for the pure and loving wife, Were the silver bars that marked her life, That numbered the days melodiously; While, through all noble daring, Hugh From a Captain to a Colonel grew, And his praises sweetened every tongue That reached her ear,—for old and young Gave him the gallant leader’s due. X. 1. Flight of a meteor through the sky, Scattering firebrands, arrows, and death,— A baleful year, that hurtled by While ancient kingdoms held their breath. 2. The Capital grew aghast with sights Flashed from the lurid river-heights, Full of the fearful things sent down, By demons haunting the middle air, Into the hot, beleaguered town,— All woful sights and sounds, which seem The fantasy of a sickly dream: Crowded wickedness everywhere; Everywhere a stifled sense Of the noonday-striding pestilence; Every church, from wall to wall, A closely-mattressed hospital; And ah! our bleeding heroes, brought From smouldering fields so vainly fought, Filling each place where a man could lie To gasp a dying wish—and die; While the sombre sky, relentlessly, Covered the town with a funeral-pall, A death-damp, trickling funeral-pall.