Margaret Junkin Preston

Margaret Junkin Preston Poems

Halt!-the march is over,
Day is almost done;
Loose the cumbrous knapsack,
Drop the heavy gun.
...

What are the thoughts that are stirring his breast?
What is the mystical vision he sees?
-'Let us pass over the river, and rest
...

Only a private - and who will care
When I may pass away,
Or how, or why I perish, or where
I mix with the common clay?
...

I read the marble-lettered name,
And half in bitterness I said,
'As Dante from Ravenna came,
Our poet came from exile-dead.'
...

A simple, sodded mound of earth,
Without a line above it;
With only daily votive flowers
To prove that any love it:
...

Float aloft, thou stainless banner!
Azure cross and field of light;
Be thy brilliant stars the symbol
Of the pure and true and right.
...

Grandly thou fillest the world's eye to-day,
My proud Virginia! When the gage was thrown--
The deadly gage of battle--thou, alone,
...

We do accept thee, heavenly Peace!
Albeit thou comest in a guise
Unlooked for-undesired, our eyes
Welcome through tears the sweet release
...

I
How much would I care for it, could I know
That when I am under the grass or snow,
The ravelled garment of life's brief day
...

We mean to do it. Some day, some day,
We mean to slacken this feverish rush
That is wearing our very souls away,
And grant to our hearts a hush
...

The feathery foliage has broadened its leaves,
And June, with its beautiful mornings and eves,
Its magical atmosphere, breezes and blooms,
...

Ye, who by the couches of languishing ones,
Have watched through the rising and setting of suns,--
...

'I am weary and worn,--I am hungry and chill,
And cuttingly strikes the keen blast o'er the hill;
...

When fierce and fast-thronging calamities rush
Resistless as destiny o'er us, and crush
The life from the quivering heart till we feel
...

'To-morrow is Christmas!'--and clapping his hands,
Little Archie in joyful expectancy stands,
And watches the shadows, now short and now tall,
...

The lull of the Winter is over; and Spring
Comes back, as delicious and buoyant a thing,
As airy, and fairy, and lightsome, and bland,
...

'Tis Autumn,--and Nature the forest has hung
With arras more gorgeous than ever was flung
From Gobelin looms,--all so varied, so rare,
...

'My Douglass! my darling!--there once was a time,
When we to each other confessed the sublime
And perfect sufficiency love could bestow,
...

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

Heard ye that thrilling word -
Accent of dread -
Fall, like a thunderbolt,
Bowing each head?
...

The Best Poem Of Margaret Junkin Preston

The Bivouac In The Snow

Halt!-the march is over,
Day is almost done;
Loose the cumbrous knapsack,
Drop the heavy gun.
Chilled and wet and weary,
Wander to and fro,
Seeking wood to kindle
Fires amidst the snow.

Round the bright blaze gather,
Heed not sleet or cold;
Ye are Spartan soldiers,
Stout and brave and bold.
Never Xerxian army
Yet subdued a foe
Who but asked a blanket
On a bed of snow.

Shivering, 'midst the darkness,
Christian men are found,
There devoutly kneeling
On the frozen ground-
Pleading for their country,
In its hour of woe-
For the soldiers marching
Shoeless through the snow.

Lost in heavy slumbers,
Free from toil and strife,
Dreaming of their dear ones-
Home, and child, and wife-
Tentless they are lying,
While the fires burn low-
Lying in their blankets
'Midst December's snow.

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