The Dying Soldier's Wife

Ah ! well; the sun is sinking,—it will all be over soon;
When the hungry jackals shriek to-night to the yellow moon,
You will hear them, little daughter, and shudder in your bed;
But I shall be one, my darling, beyond those bars of red:

For the sun is burning crimson, down on the date-trees crown,
And the hills in the distance rising show purple, and blue, and brown;
Rising up height over height, sheer into the hot thin air,
I can see them where I lie, like a tinted marble stair,

Inlaid with green and amber, wrapt in a violet glow,
While the white pagodas shine, and the palm-trees shake below:
But I would give all this glory for one pale northern morn,
For the grey light in its heaven, and the gleam of its golden corn.

It's far away in the West, and it's long ago, my dear,
But the shadows grow sharp and long, as evening draweth near;
And all the long day I have heard, across this sultry heat,
A patter of rain in the leaves, and the salt wave's tremulous beat.

It was early Autumn weather; the flax was in the pool,
And just this time of evening, but a night so calm and cool,
The curlew came up and cried in the shingle along the shore,
And the blue hills turn'd to black, as I stood at my father's door.

Ah! why should all this come back to-night on my dying brain?—
I heard their footsteps coming, and their voices in the lane.
Mother was in the byre; I, too, should have been there,
But I knew they were talking of me, and I slipp'd out unaware.

“Neighbour,” my father was saying, “forty pounds has the lass,
And if you will not have her, you can even let her pass.”
Washing, washing, washing, came the tide on the black rocks by,
But my heart beat louder and faster for fear of the man's reply.

He was the wealthiest farmer in all our country wide,—
But he was not to my mind, Jane, had he been an earl beside.
Angry and sharp came the answer,—“Forty is little,” he said;
“You should give your eldest daughter a trifle more to wed.”

Spake out then your soldier father,—he stood the next to me;
I knew it before he said a word, although I could not see:
“I reckon,” said he, “there's that can never be bought or sold,
And if you give me Mary, I ask nor silver nor gold.”

Washing, washing, washing, came the tide up over the stones,
Was it that or my own heart-beating that changed my father's tones?
“Forty pounds is her dower, and you shall have her,” said he.—
It's long ago, my darling, and it's far, far over the sea.

Ah! why should all this come back to-night, when my brain is weak?—
The rush of the wild south-wester, and the soft spray on my cheek,—
I've forgotten so many things, but this lives in my breast,
Like the blaze of a crimson dawn burnt into a gloomy west.

I've forgotten so many things, or they pass me by in a maze,—
The Sepoys' murderous battle, and Lucknow's weary days;
The dropping shot on the rampart, the sight of your father's blood;
And the wail, and the fear, and the hunger, behind those walls of mud.

They pass me by like spectres, as I go down to the grave,
But a music tender and strange comes to me over the wave;
The church stands under the wood, where the hill dips to the loch,
She sings as a mother sings, when she makes the cradle rock.

Solemnly moves the pastor's lip, and as he prays and reads,
The words of love and of promise drop down like golden beads;—
Oh! it's well that strain has linger'd within me to this day,
For it's little I've heard of Christ in this land where Christians sway.

Is it well, O land of glory! to send thy brave sons forth
From thy sunny southland meadows, thy grey cliff-guarded North?
You give them bread in the barracks, and weapons for the strife,
But not a Sword to fight the fiend, and not the Bread of Life.

From your valleys crown'd with churches, a dry Cross on their brow,
You send them out, with never a one to bid them keep their vow.
They fight your battles bravely; they die for you, sword in hand,
And leave their fair-faced orphans behind in a heathen land,—

Behind, with never a church-bell rung, never a chanted psalm,
But hellish rite, and song impure, and the idol 'neath the palm.
They may grow up in that darkness; there's none to care or know—
O rich men over in England! O mothers! should this be so?

There's never a heart among you, up to the Queen on her throne,
But thrills when the terrible tale of this Indian War is known:
Never an eye but weeps, where her soldiers' arms are piled—
You give him tears and honour, give gold for his perishing child.

Hush! hush! they are passing away, the long wash of the sea;
And the singing down in the church makes music no more for me:
I am drifting slowly homeward, and though there be clouds afar,
They touch but the sails of the ship that crosses the harbour bar.

For it's not the dying sun that shines in my dying eyes,
But a trail of the glory of Heaven over the mountain lies;
So lift me up, my darling, 'tis a gleam of the Golden Floor,
Through the Gate that is all one pearl, where Christ has pass'd before.

I have served Him badly, my child, weakly, below my desire,
Fearing, and falling, and rising, yet evermore coming nigher;
But as the sunbeam draws all other lights into its ray,
As the hand takes tenderly in the bird that wander'd away,—

So the love of that heart Divine absorbs my poor weak love,
So the hand of my Saviour in Heaven takes in His weary dove;
And I could go so gladly, but ever there rises a mist—
'Tis you and your little sister—betwixt my soul and Christ.

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