Through nights and days of fear and grief,
  She kept her faithful watch and ward,
  But love and rest brought no relief;
  And all he begged for of his Lord
  Was death, with passion faint and brief.

  XXIV.

  Around the house were prying eyes,
  And gossips hiding under trees;
  And Mildred heard the steps of spies
  At midnight, when, upon her knees,
  She sought the comfort of the skies.

  Strange voices rose upon the night;
  Strange errands entered at the gate;
  Her hours were months of pale affright;
  But still her prisoner of state
  Was shielded from their eager sight.

  They did not dare to force the lock
  Of one whose deeds had been divine,
  Or carry to her heart the shock
  Of violence, although condign
  Toward one who dared the laws to mock.

  But there were hirelings in pursuit,
  Who thirsted for his golden price;
  And, swift allied with pimp and brute,
  And quick to purchase and entice,
  They found the tree that held their fruit.

  XXV.

  The day of Gettysburg had set;
  The smoke had drifted from the scene,
  And burnished sword and bayonet
  Lay rusting where, but yestere’en,
  They dropped with life-blood red and wet!

  The swift invader had retraced
  His march, and left his fallen braves,
  Covered at night in voiceless haste,
  To, sleep, in memorable graves,
  But knew that all his loss was waste.

  The nation’s legions, stretching wide,
  Too sore to chase, too weak to cheer,
  Gave sepulture to those who died,
  And saw their foemen disappear
  Without the loss of power or pride.

  And then, swift-sweeping like a gale,
  Through all the land, from end to end,
  Grief poured its wild, untempered wail,
  And father, mother, wife, and friend
  Forgot their country in their bale.

  And Philip, with his fatal wound,
  Was borne beyond the battle’s blaze,
  Across the torn and quaking ground,—­
  His ear too dull to heed the praise,
  That spoke him hero, robed and crowned.

  They bent above his blackened face,
  And questioned of his last desire;
  And with his old, familiar grace,
  And smiling mouth, and eye of fire,
  He answered them:  “My wife’s embrace!”

  They wiped his forehead of its stain,
  They bore him tenderly away,
  Through teeming mart and wide champaign,
  Till on a twilighty cool and gray,
  And wet with weeping of the rain,

  They gave him to a silent crowd
  That waited at the river’s marge,
  Of men with age and sorrow bowed,
  Who raised and bore their precious charge,
  Through groups that watched and wailed aloud.

  XXVI.

  The hounds of power were at her gate;
  And at their heels, a yelping pack
  Of graceless mongrels stood in wait,
  To mark the issue of attack,
  With lips that slavered with their hate.