| |
| THE WINTRY blast goes wailing by, | |
| The snow is falling overhead; | |
| I hear the lonely sentry’s tread, | |
| And distant watch-fires light the sky. | |
| |
| Dim forms go flitting through the gloom; | 5 |
| The soldiers cluster round the blaze | |
| To talk of other Christmas days, | |
| And softly speak of home and home. | |
| |
| My sabre swinging overhead | |
| Gleams in the watch-fire’s fitful glow, | 10 |
| While fiercely drives the blinding snow, | |
| And memory leads me to the dead. | |
| |
| My thoughts go wandering to and fro, | |
| Vibrating ’twixt the Now and Then; | |
| I see the low-browed home again, | 15 |
| The old hall wreathed with mistletoe. | |
| |
| And sweetly from the far-off years | |
| Comes borne the laughter faint and low, | |
| The voices of the Long Ago! | |
| My eyes are wet with tender tears. | 20 |
| |
| I feel again the mother-kiss, | |
| I see again the glad surprise | |
| That lightened up the tranquil eyes | |
| And brimmed them o’er with tears of bliss, | |
| |
| As, rushing from the old hall-door, | 25 |
| She fondly clasped her wayward boy— | |
| Her face all radiant with the joy | |
| She felt to see him home once more. | |
| |
| My sabre swinging on the bough | |
| Gleams in the watch-fire’s fitful glow, | 30 |
| While fiercely drives the blinding snow | |
| Aslant upon my saddened brow. | |
| |
| Those cherished faces all are gone! | |
| Asleep within the quiet graves | |
| Where lies the snow in drifting waves,— | 35 |
| And I am sitting here alone. | |
| |
| There ’s not a comrade here to-night | |
| But knows that loved ones far away | |
| On bended knees this night will pray: | |
| “God bring our darling from the fight.” | 40 |
| |
| But there are none to wish me back, | |
| For me no yearning prayers arise. | |
| The lips are mute and closed the eyes— | |
My home is in the bivouac.
In the Army of Northern Virginia. | |
| |
