Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
Christmas Night of 62
By William Gordon McCabe (18411920)T
The snow is falling overhead;
I hear the lonely sentry’s tread,
And distant watch-fires light the sky.
The soldiers cluster round the blaze,
To talk of other Christmas days,
And softly speak of home and home.
Gleams in the watch-fire’s fitful glow,
While fiercely drives the blinding snow,
And memory leads me to the dead.
Vibrating ’twixt the Now and Then;
I see the low-browed home again,
The old hall wreathed with mistletoe.
Comes borne the laughter faint and low,
The voices of the Long Ago!
My eyes are wet with tender tears.
I see again the glad surprise
That lightened up the tranquil eyes
And brimmed them o’er with tears of bliss,
She fondly clasped her wayward boy—
Her face all radiant with the joy
She felt to see him home once more.
Gleams in the watch-fire’s fitful glow,
While fiercely drives the blinding snow
Aslant upon my saddened brow.
Asleep within the quiet graves
Where lies the snow in drifting waves,—
And I am sitting here alone.
But knows that loved ones far away
On bended knees this night will pray:
“God bring our darling from the fight.”
For me no yearning prayers arise.
The lips are mute and closed the eyes—
My home is in the bivouac.
In the Army of Northern Virginia.