Poems (Trask)/One Away

by Clara Augusta Jones Trask

ONE AWAY.

The wild winds whistle down the hills' dark gorge;
 The leaden air is full of hail and snow;
And, tossed and harassed by the reckless wind,
 The drifts to frigid, white-capt mountains grow.

The cold is brutal: ice reigns everywhere;
 The prisoned streamlet groans in sullen pain;
The mighty river, flowing to the sea,
 Struggles in impotence to break its chain.

It is a night when, thankful unto God
 For home and love, we gather round the hearth;
When we would draw in those we care for most
 To our embrace, from all the wide, cold earth.

I shudder, though the grate is crimson red
 And all around me is the ruddy light;
My thoughts go out to wander after one,—
 To wonder where he is this boisterous night!

Sleeps he beside the camp-fire's dying glare,
 Dreaming of home and friends so far away?
Or pacing on the lonesome picket-guard,
 With weary waiting for the break of day?

The tents gleam whitely through the torpid night;
 The earthworks, sharp defined, rise up below;
And, through the murky gloom that lies between,
 He sees the distant watch-fires of the foe.

His dark eye kindles,—flushes hot his cheek:
 Maybe the morrow's sun will shine on strife!
The smoky sky hang over men who meet
 To yield up blood for blood, and life for life!

Oh, Heaven! the winds shriek on like fiends at war!
 My heart shrinks cold and shudd'ring in my breast;
The thought of him upon that deadly field
 Breaks ruthlessly through all my hours of rest!

I find no peace, nor comfort! Heaven, be kind!
 This mortal dread of fate, so stern and grim,
Is terrible! my dreams are full of it!
 My life is one long prayer to God for him!