Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
III. WarLeft on the Battle-Field
Sarah Tittle Bolton (18141893)W
In the dreary night and the drizzling rain?
Hist!—ah, it was only the river’s moan;
They have left me behind with the mangled slain.
We met, from the battling ranks apart;
Together our weapons flashed and fell,
And mine was sheathed in his quivering heart.
It was all too dark to see his face;
But I heard his death-groans, one by one,
And he holds me still in a cold embrace.
The words he said for the cannon’s roar;
But my heart grew cold with a deadly fear,—
O God! I had heard that voice before!
When we lisped the words of our evening prayer!
My brother! would I had died for thee,—
This burden is more than my soul can bear!
And begged him to show me, by word or sign,
That he knew and forgave me: he could not speak,
But he nestled his poor cold face to mine.
And then for a while I forgot my pain,
And over the lakelet we seemed to glide
In our little boat, two boys again.
On a forest path where the shadows fell;
And I heard again the tremulous tone,
And the tender words of his last farewell.
He wandered away to a foreign land;
And our dear old mother will never know
That he died to-night by his brother’s hand.
The soldiers who buried the dead away
Disturbed not the clasp of that last embrace,
But laid them to sleep till the judgment-day,
Heart folded to heart, and face to face.