Poems (Blake)/The Picket

by Mary Elizabeth Blake

THE PICKET.

Slow across the dull Potomac fades the dim November light,
And the darkness, like a mantle, folds the tented field from sight;
In the shadowed wood beside me breaks the wind with quiv'ring moan,
      Floating, sighing,
      Falling, dying,
    As I keep my watch alone.

Forward, backward, stern and fearless, till the moonbeam's silver ray
Breaks in many a gleaming arrow from my bayonet's point away;
So I pace the picket lonely, while apart from mortal sight
      Watch I'm keeping
      With the sleeping
    Loved ones far away to-night.

On the morrow comes Thanksgiving, when from households far and wide
Round the hearths the children gather,—seek once more the old fireside;
Fill once more the vacant places that they left so long ago,
      Self-relying,
      Proudly trying
    All life's unknown joy and woe.

On the morrow comes Thanksgiving! Not as long ago it came,
Bright, without a shade of sorrow lingering round its good old name;
War has waved his crimson banner, and beneath its blood stains rest
      All his glory,
      Dim and gory,
    Laid on many a lifeless breast.

Wife and child and aged mother wake at morn to bend the knee,
And, around the hearthstone glowing, supplicate their God for me;
Near my vacant chair they gather, blending tears amid their prayers,—
      He will hear them,
      And anear them
    Will my spirit kneel with theirs.

Nor is darkness all around us; we can thank our God for might,
For the strength which He has given still to struggle for the Right;
For the soul so grandly beating in the nation's onward way,
      For the spirit
      We inherit
    On this new Thanksgiving day!

Still the blue Potomac ripples like a silver thread below,
And amid the sullen darkness rises high the camp-fire's glow;
So I pace the picket lonely, while apart from mortal sight
      Watch I'm keeping
      With the sleeping
    Loved ones far away to-night.