Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/40

32 pause. I have already illustrated their fortitude and heroic endurance.

The noble bearing of General Burnside throughout the siege won the admiration of all. In a speech at Cincinnati, a few days after the siege was raised, with that modesty which characterizes the true soldier, he said that the honors bestowed on him belonged to his under officers and the men in the ranks. These kindly words his officers and men will ever cherish; and in all their added years, as they recall the widely separated battle-fields, made forever sacred by the blood of their fallen comrades, and forever glorious by the victories there won, it will be their pride to say, "We fought with Burnside at Campbell's Station and in the trenches at Knoxville."

LITTLE low-ceiled room. Four walls

Whose blank shut out all else of life,

And crowded close within their bound

A world of pain, and toil, and strife.

Her world. Scarce furthermore she knew

Of God's great globe, that wondrously

Outrolls a glory of green earth,

And frames it with the restless sea.

Four closer walls of common pine:

And therein lieth, cold and still,

The weary flesh that long hath borne

Its patient mystery of ill.

Regardless now of work to do;

No queen more careless in her state;

Hands crossed in their unbroken calm;

For other hands the work may wait.

Put by her implements of toil;

Put by each coarse, intrusive sign;

She made a Sabbath when she died,

And round her breathes a Rest Divine.

Put by, at last, beneath the lid,

The exempted hands, the tranquil face;

Uplift her in her dreamless sleep,

And bear her gently from the place.

Oft she hath gazed, with wistful eyes,

Out from that threshold on the night;

The narrow bourn she crosseth now;

She standeth in the Eternal Light.

Oft she hath pressed, with aching feet,

Those broken steps that reach the door;

Henceforth with angels she shall tread

Heaven's golden stair forevermore!