Beechenbrook - X Poem by Margaret Junkin Preston

'Break, my heart, and ease this pain--
Cease to throb, thou tortured brain;
Let me die,--since he is slain,
--Slain in battle!

Blessed brow, that loved to rest
Its dear whiteness on my breast--
Gory was the grass it prest,
--Slain in battle!

Oh! that still and stately form--
Never more will it be warm;
Chilled beneath that iron storm,
--Slain in battle!

Not a pillow for his head--
Not a hand to smooth his bed--
Not one tender parting said,
--Slain in battle!

Straightway from that bloody sod,
Where the trampling horsemen trod--
Lifted to the arms of God;
--Slain in battle!

Not my love to come between,
With its interposing screen--
Naught of earth to intervene;
--Slain in battle!

Snatched the purple billows o'er,
Through the fiendish rage and roar,
To the far and peaceful shore;
--Slain in battle!

_Nunc demitte_--thus I pray--
What else left for me to say,
Since my life is reft away?
--Slain in battle!

Let me die, oh! God!--the dart
Rankles deep within my heart,--
Hope, and joy, and peace, depart;
--Slain in battle!'

'Tis thus through her days and her nights of despair,
Her months of bereavement so bitter to bear,
That Alice moans ever. Ah! little they know,
Who look on that brow, still and white as the snow,
Who watch--but in vain--for the sigh or the tear,
That only comes thick when no mortal is near,--
Who whisper--'How gently she bends to the rod!'
Because all her heart-break is kept for her God,--
Ah! little _they_ know of the tempests that roll
Their desolate floods through the depths of her soul!

Afar in our sunshiny homes on the shore,
We heed not how wildly the billows may roar;
We smile at our firesides, happy and free,
While the rich-freighted argosy founders at sea!
Though wrapped in the weeds of her widowhood, pale,--
Though life seems all sunless and dim through the veil
That drearily shadows her sorrowful brow,--
Is the cause of her country less dear to her now?
Does the patriot-flame in her heart cease to stir,--
Does she feel that the conflict is over for her?
Because the red war-tide has deluged her o'er,--
Has wreaked its wild wrath, and can harm _her_ no more,--
Does she stand, self-absorbed, on the wreck she has braved,
Nor care if her country be lost or be saved?

By her pride in the soil that has given her birth--
By her tenderest memories garnered on earth--
By the legacy blood-bought and precious, which she
Would leave to her children--the right to be free,--
By the altar where once rose the hymn and the prayer;
By the home that lies scarred in its solitude there,--
By the pangs she has suffered,--the ills she has borne,--
By the desolate exile through which she must mourn,--
By the struggles that hallow this fair Southern sod,
By the vows she has breathed in the ear of her God,--
By the blood of the heart that she worshipped,--the life
That enfolded her own; by her love, as his wife;
By his death on the battle-field, gallantly brave,--
By the shadow that ever will wrap her--his grave--
By the faith she reposes, oh! Father! in Thee,
She claims that her glorious South MUST be free!