Beechenbrook - Iii Poem by Margaret Junkin Preston

Ye, who by the couches of languishing ones,
Have watched through the rising and setting of suns,--
Who, silent, behind the close curtain, withdrawn,
Scarce know that the current of being sweeps on,--
To whom outer life is unreal, untrue,
A world with whose moils ye have nothing to do;
Who feel that the day, with its multiform rounds,
Is full of discordant, impertinent sounds,--
Who speak in low whispers, and stealthily tread,
As if a faint footfall were something to dread,--
Who find all existence,--its gladness, its gloom,--
Enclosed by the walls of that limited room,--
Ye only can measure the sleepless unrest
That lies like a night-mare on Alice's breast.

Days come and days go, and she watches the strife
So evenly balanced, 'twixt death and 'twixt life;
Thanks God he still breathes, as each evening takes wing,
And dares not to think what the morrow may bring.

In the lone, ghostly midnight, he raves as he lies,
With death's ashen pallidness dimming his eyes:
He shouts the sharp war-cry,--he rallies his men,--
He is on the red field of Manassas again.

'Now, courage, my comrades! Keep steady! lie low!
Wait, like the couch'd lion, to spring on your foe:
Ye'll face without flinching the cannons' grim mouth,
For ye're 'Knights of the Horse-Shoe'--ye're Sons of the South!
There's Jackson!--how brave he rides! coursing at will,
Midst the prostrated lines on the crest of the hill;
God keep him! for what will we do if he falls?
Be ready, good fellows!--be cool when he calls
To the charge: Oh! we'll beat them,--we'll turn them,--and then
We'll ride them down madly!--On! Onward! my men!'

The feverish frenzy o'erwearies him soon,
And back on his pillows he sinks in a swoon.

And sometimes, when Alice is wetting his lip,
He turns from the draught, and refuses to sip:
--''Tis sweet, pretty angel!--but yonder there lies
A famishing comrade, with death in his eyes:
His need is far greater,... Sir Philip, I think,--
Or was it Sir Philip?... go, go!--let him drink!'

And oft, with a sort of bewildered amaze,
On her face he would fasten the wistfullest gaze:
--'You are kind, but a hospital nurse cannot be
Like Alice,--my tenderest Alice,--to me.
Oh! I know there's at Beechenbrook, many a tear,
As she asks all the day,--'Will he never be here?''

But Nature, kind healer! brings sovereignest balm,
And strokes the wild pulses with coolness and calm;

The conflict so equal, so stubborn, is past,
And life gains the hardly-won battle at last.
How sweet through the long convalescence to lie,
And from the low window, gaze out at the sky,
And float, as the zephyrs so tranquilly do,
Aloft in the depths of ineffable blue:--
In painless, delicious half consciousness brood,--
No duties to cumber, no claims to intrude,--
Receptive as childhood, from trouble as free,
And feel it is bliss enough simply, to be!

For Alice,--what pencil can picture her joy,--
So perfect, so thankful, so free from annoy,
As her lips press the lotus-bound chalice, and drain
That exquisite blessedness born out of pain!
Oh! not in her maidenhood, blushing and sweet,
When Douglass first poured out his love at her feet;
And not when a shrinking and beautiful bride,
With worshipping fondness she clung to his side;
And not in those holiest moments of life,
When first she was held to his heart, as his wife;
And never in motherhood's earliest bliss,
Had she tasted a happiness rounded like this!

And Douglass, safe sheltered from war's rude alarms,
Finds Eden's lost precincts again in her arms:
He hears afar off, in the distance, the roar
And the lash of the billows that break on the shore
Of his isle of enchantment,--his haven of rest,--
And rapturous languor steals over his breast.

He bathes in the sunlight of Alice's smiles;
He wraps himself round with love's magical wiles:
His sweet iterations pall not on her ear,--
'_I love you--I love you!_'--she never can hear
That cadence too often; its musical roll
Wakes ever an echoed reply in her soul.

--Do visions of trial, of warning, of woe,
Loom dark in the future of doubt? Do they know
They are hiving, of honied remembrance, a store
To live on, when summer and sunshine are o'er?
Do they feel that their island of beauty at last
Must be rent by the tempest,--be swept by the blast?
Do they dream that afar, on the wild, wintry main,
Their love-freighted bark must be driven again?

--Bless God for the wisdom that curtains so tight
To-morrow's enjoyments or griefs from our sight!
Bless God for the ignorance, darkness and doubt,
That girdle so kindly our future about!

The crutches are brought, and the invalid's strength
Is able to measure the lawn's gravel'd length;
And under the beeches, once more he reclines,
And hears the wind plaintively moan through the pines;
His children around him, with frolic and play,
Cheat autumn's mild listlessness out of the day;
And Alice, the sunshine all flecking her book,
Reads low to the chime of the murmuring brook.

But the world's rushing tide washes up to his feet,
And leaps the soft barriers that bound his retreat;
The tumult of camps surges out on the breeze,
And ever seems mocking his Capuan ease.
He dare not be happy, or tranquil, or blest,
While his soil by the feet of invaders is prest:
What brooks it though still he be pale as a ghost?
--If he languish or fail, let him fail at his post.


The gums by the brook-side are crimson and brown;
The leaves of the ash flicker goldenly down;
The roses that trellis the porches, have lost
Their brightness and bloom at the touch of the frost;
The ozier-twined seat by the beeches, no more
Looks tempting, and cheerful, and sweet, as of yore;
The water glides darkly and mournfully on,
As Alice sits watching it:--Douglass has gone!