Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/68

IN WAR TIME And she gave to all her soothing words,

Sweet as the songs of homestead birds.

Sometimes that utterance musical

On the soldier's failing sense would fall,

Seeming, almost, a prelude given

Of whispers that calm the air of Heaven;

While her white hand, moistening his poor lips

With the draught which slakeless fever sips,

Pointed him to that fount above,—

River of water of life and love,—

Stream without price, of whose purity

Whoever thirsteth may freely buy.

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How many—whom in their mortal pain

She tended—'t was given her to gain,

Through Him who died upon the rood,

For that divine beatitude,

Who of us all can ever know

Till the golden books their records show?

But she saw their dying faces light,

And felt a rapture in the sight.

And many a sufferer's earthly life

Thanked for new strength the Colonel's wife;

Many a soldier turned his head,

Watching her pass his narrow bed,

Or, haply, his feeble frame would raise,

As the dim lamp her form revealed;

And, like the children in the field,

(For soldiers like little ones become,—

As simple in heart, as frolicsome,)

One and another breathed her name,

Blessing her as she went and came.

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So, through all actions pure and good,

Unknowing evil, shame, or fear, 38