Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
By the Shenandoah
By Edna Dean Proctor (18291923)M
Where Shenandoah, murmuring, flows;
The Blue Ridge towers in the pale moonlight,
And balmily the south-wind blows;
But my fire burns dim, while athwart the wall,
Black as the pines, the shadows fall;
And the only friend within my door
Is the sleeping hound on the moonlit floor.
Again the gay and cloudless morn
When every bird was on the wing,
And my blithe summer boys were born!
My Courtney fair, my Philip bold,
With his laughing eyes and his locks of gold,—
No nested bird in the valley wide
Sang as my heart, that eventide.
Our pines shoot high through mellow showers;
So rosy-flushed, so slender-tall,
My boys grew up from childhood’s hours.
Glad in the breeze, the sun, the rain,
They climbed the heights or they roamed the plain;
And found where the fox lay hid at noon,
And the shy fawn drank by the rising moon.
When all the dewy glades are still,
In silver windings, fine and clear,
Their whistle stealing o’er the hill!
And fly to the shade where the wild deer rest,
Ere morn has reddened the mountain’s crest;
Nor sit at their feet, when the chase is o’er,
And the antlers hang by the sunset-door.
They heard the hostile trumpets blow,
And leapt adown like April rills
When Shenandoah roars below.
One, to the field where the old flag shines,
And one, alas! to the traitor lines!
My tears,—their fond arms round me thrown,—
And the house was hushed on the hillside lone.
Was sharper than their sabres’ steel!
In every shifting cloud that rose
I saw their deadly squadrons wheel;
And heard in the waves, as they hurried by,
Their hasty tread when the light was nigh,
And, deep in the wail which the night-winds bore,
Their dying moan when the fight was o’er.
Our wheat-fields yellow in the sun;
When down the vale a rider flew:
“Ho! neighbors, Gettysburg is won!
Horse and foot, at the cannon’s mouth
We hurled them back to the hungry South;
The North is safe; and the vile marauder
Curses the hour he crossed the border.”
“And Philip, Courtney, what of them?”
His voice dropped low: “Oh, madam, rest
Falls sweet when battle’s tide we stem.
Your Philip was first of the brave that day
With his colors grasped as in death he lay;
And Courtney—well, I only knew
Not a man was left of his rebel crew.”
My home is drear and still to-night
Where Shenandoah, murmuring, flows;
The Blue Ridge towers in the pale moonlight,
And balmily the south-wind blows;
But my fire burns dim, while athwart the wall,
Black as the pines, the shadows fall;
And the only friend within my door
Is the sleeping hound on the moonlit floor.
They chase the deer o’er dewy hills,
Their hair by mountain winds is blown,
Their shout the echoing valley fills.
Wafts from the woodland, spring sunshine,
Come as they open this door of mine,
And I hear them sing by the evening blaze
The songs they sang in the vanished days.
“This was the traitor, this the true”;
God only knows why one should stray,
And one go pure death’s portals through.
They have passed from their mother’s clasp and care;
But my heart ascends in the yearning prayer
That His larger love will the two enfold,—
My Courtney fair and my Philip bold!