124
SONGS, LEGENDS, AND BALLADS.
God! what a threshold they stand upon:
The world has passed on while they were buried;
In the glare of the sun they walk alone
On the grass-grown track where the crowd has hurried.
Haggard and broken and seared with pain,
They seek the remembered friends and places;
Men shuddering turn, and gaze again
At the deep-drawn lines on their altered faces.
What do they read on the pallid page?
"What is the tale of these woful letters?
A lesson as old as their country's age,
Of a love that is stronger than stripes and fetters.
In the blood of the slain some dip their blade,
And swear by the stain the foe to follow:
But a deadlier oath might here be made,
On the wasted bodies and faces hollow.
