Page:Poems Proctor.djvu/258

So time went on. The skies were blue;
 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!"

My boys were there! I nearer prest,—
 "And Philip, Courtney, what of them?"
His voice dropped low: "O 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."
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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.

Yet still in dreams my boys I own;
 They chase the deer o'er dewy hills,