Beechenbrook - Ii Poem by Margaret Junkin Preston

The feathery foliage has broadened its leaves,
And June, with its beautiful mornings and eves,
Its magical atmosphere, breezes and blooms,
Its woods all delicious with thousand perfumes,--
First-born of the Summer,--spoiled pet of the year,--
June, delicate queen of the seasons, is here!

The sadness has passed from the dwelling away,
And quiet serenity brightens the day:
With innocent prattle, her toils to beguile,
In the midst of her children, the mother _must_ smile.
With matronly cares,--those relentless demands
On the strength of her heart and the skill of her hands,--
The hours come tenderly, ceaselessly fraught,
And leave her small space for the broodings of thought.

Thank God!--busy fingers a solace can find,
To lighten the burden of body or mind;
And Eden's old curse proves a blessing instead,--
'In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou toil for thy bread.'
For the bless'd relief in all labours that lurk,
Aye, thank Him, unhappy ones,--thank Him for work!

Thus Alice engages her thoughts and her powers,
And industry kindly lends wings to the hours:
Poor, petty employments they sometimes appear,
And on her bright needle there plashes a tear,--
Half shame and half passion;--what would she not dare
Her fervid compatriots' struggles to share?
It irks her,--the weakness of womanhood then,--
Yet such are the tears that make heroes of men!

She feels the hot blood of the nation beat high;
With rapture she catches the rallying cry:
From mountain and valley and hamlet they come!
On every side echoes the roll of the drum.
A people as firm, as united, as bold,
As ever drew blade for the blessings they hold,
Step sternly and solemnly forth in their might,
And swear on their altars to die for the right!

The clangor of muskets,--the flashing of steel,--
The clatter of spurs on the stout-booted heel,--
The waving of banners,--the resonant tramp
Of marching battalions,--the fiery stamp
Of steeds in their war-harness, newly decked out,--
The blast of the bugle,--the hurry, the shout,--
The terrible energy, eager and wild,
That lights up the face of man, woman and child,--
That burns on all lips, that arouses all powers;
Did ever we dream that such times would be ours?

One thought is absorbing, with giant control,--
With deadliest earnest, the national soul:--
'The right of self-government, crown of our pride,--
Right, bought with the sacredest blood,--is denied!
Shall we tamely resign what our enemy craves?
No! martyrs we _may_ be!--we _cannot_ be slaves!'
Fair women who naught but indulgence have seen,
Who never have learned what denial could mean,--

Who deign not to clipper their own dainty feet,
Whose wants swarthy handmaids stand ready to meet,
Whose fingers decline the light kerchief to hem,--
What aid in this struggle is hoped for from them?

Yet see! how they haste from their bowers of ease,
Their dormant capacities fired,--to seize
Every feminine weapon their skill can command,--
To labor with head, and with heart, and with hand.
They stitch the rough jacket, they shape the coarse shirt,
Unheeding though delicate fingers be hurt;
They bind the strong haversack, knit the grey glove,
Nor falter nor pause in their service of love.

When ever were people subdued, overthrown,
With women to cheer them on, brave as our own?
With maidens and mothers at work on their knees,
When ever were soldiers as fearless as these?

June's flower-wreathed sceptre is dropped with a sigh,
And forth like an empress steps stately July:
She sits all unveiled, amidst sunshine and balms,
As Zenobia sat in her City of Palms!

Not yet has the martial horizon grown dun,
Not yet has the terrible conflict begun:
But the tumult of legions,--the rush and the roar,
Break over our borders, like waves on the shore.
Along the Potomac, the confident foe
Stands marshalled for onset,--prepared, at a blow,
To vanquish the daring rebellion, and fling
Utter ruin at once on the arrogant thing!

How sovran the silence that broods o'er the sky,
And ushers the twenty-first morn of July;
--Date, written in fire on history's scroll,--
--Date, drawn in deep blood-lines on many a soul!

There is quiet at Beechenbrook: Alice's brow
Is wearing a Sabbath tranquility now,
As softly she reads from the page on her knee,--
'Thou wilt keep him in peace who is stayed upon Thee!'
When Sophy bursts breathlessly into the room,--
'Oh! mother! we hear it,--we hear it!.., the boom
Of the fast and the fierce cannonading!--it shook
The ground till it trembled, along by the brook.'

One instant the listener sways in her seat,--
The paralysed heart has forgotten to beat;
The next, with the speed and the frenzy of fear,
She gains the green hillock, and pauses to hear.

Again and again the reverberant sound
Is fearfully felt in the tremulous ground;
Again and again on their senses it thrills,
Like thunderous echoes astray in the hills.

On tip-toe,--the summer wind lifting his hair,
With nostril expanded, and scenting the air
Like a mettled young war-horse that tosses his mane,
And frettingly champs at the bit and the rein,--
Stands eager, exultant, a twelve-year-old boy,
His face all aflame with a rapturous joy.

'_That's_ music for heroes in battle array!
Oh, mother! I feel like a Roman to-day!
The Romans I read of in Plutarch;--Yes, men
Thought it noble to die for their liberties then!
And I've wondered if soldiers were ever so bold,
So gallant and brave, as those heroes of old.
--There!--listen!--that volley peals out the reply;
They prove it is sweet for their country to die:
How grand it must be! what a pride! what a joy!
--And _I_ can do nothing: I'm only a boy!'

The fervid hand drops as he ceases to speak,
And the eloquent crimson fades out on his cheek.

'Oh, Beverly!--brother! It never would do!
Who comforts mamma, and who helps her like you?
She sends to the battle her darlingest one,--
She could not give both of them,--husband and son;
If she lose _you_, what's left her in life to enjoy?
--Oh, no! I am _glad_ you are only a boy.'
And Sophy looks up with her tenderest air,
And kisses the fingers that toy with her hair.

For her, who all silent and motionless stands,
And over her heart locks her quivering hands,
With white lips apart, and with eyes that dilate,
As if the low thunder were sounding her fate,--
What racking suspenses, what agonies stir,
What spectres these echoes are rousing for her!

Brave-natur'd, yet quaking,--high-souled, yet so pale,--
Is it thus that the wife of a soldier should quail,
And shudder and shrink at the boom of a gun,
As only a faint-hearted girl should have done?
Ah! wait until custom has blunted the keen,
Cutting edge of that sound, and no woman, I ween,
Will hear it with pulses more equal, more free
From feminine terrors and weakness, than she.

The sun sinks serenely; a lingering look
He flings at the mists that steal over the brook,
Like nuns that come forth in the twilight to pray,
Till their blushes are seen through their mantles of grey.

The gay-hearted children, but lightly oppressed,
Find perfect relief on their pillow of rest:
For Alice, no bless'd forgetfulness comes;--
The wail of the bugles,--the roll of the drums,--
The musket's sharp crack,--the artillery's roar,--
The flashing of bayonets dripping with gore,--
The moans of the dying,--the horror, the dread,
The ghastliness gathering over the dead,--
Oh! these are the visions of anguish and pain,--
The phantoms of terror that troop through her brain!

She pauses again and again on the floor,
Which the moonlight has brightened so mockingly o'er;
She wrings her cold hands with a groan of despair;
--'Oh, God! have compassion!--my darling is there!'

All placidly, dewily, freshly, the dawn
Comes stealing in pulseless tranquility on:
More freely she breathes, in its balminess, though
The forehead it kisses is pallid with woe.

Through the long summer sunshine the Cottage is stirred
By passers, who brokenly fling them a word:
Such tidings of slaughter! 'The enemy cowers;'--
'He breaks!'--'He is flying!'--'Manassas is ours!'

'Tis evening: and Archie, alone on the grass,
Sits watching the fire-flies gleam as they pass,
When sudden he rushes, too eager to wait,--
'Mamma! there's an ambulance stops at the gate!'

Suspense then is past: he is borne from the field,--
'God help me!... God grant it be _not_ on his shield!'
And Alice, her passionate soul in her eyes,
And hope and fear winging each quicken'd step, flies,--
Embraces, with frantical wildness, the form
Of her husband, and finds ... it is living, and warm!