Christmas Night of '62
By William Gordon McCabe (1841�1920) |
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THE WINTRY blast
goes wailing by,
The snow is falling overhead;
I hear
the lonely sentry's tread,
And distant watch-fires light
the sky.
Dim forms go flitting through the gloom;
The soldiers cluster round the blaze
To talk of other
Christmas days,
And softly speak of home and home.
My sabre swinging overhead
Gleams in the watch-fire's
fitful glow,
While fiercely drives the blinding snow,
And memory leads me to the dead.
My thoughts go
wandering to and fro,
Vibrating 'twixt the Now and Then;
I see the low-browed home again,
The old hall wreathed
with mistletoe.
And sweetly from the far-off years
Comes borne the laughter faint and low,
The voices of the
Long Ago!
My eyes are wet with tender tears.
I
feel again the mother-kiss,
I see again the glad surprise
That lightened up the tranquil eyes
And brimmed them o'er
with tears of bliss,
As, rushing from the old
hall-door,
She fondly clasped her wayward boy
Her face
all radiant with the joy
She felt to see him home once
more.
My sabre swinging on the bough
Gleams in the
watch-fire's fitful glow,
While fiercely drives the
blinding snow
Aslant upon my saddened brow.
Those
cherished faces all are gone!
Asleep within the quiet
graves
Where lies the snow in drifting waves,
And I am
sitting here alone.
There 's not a comrade here
to-night
But knows that loved ones far away
On bended
knees this night will pray:
"God bring our darling from
the fight."
But there are none to wish me back,
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. |
By
William Gordon McCabe (1841�1920)
Listed January 16, 2013 |
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