Classic Poem

'Tis a treasure from out the old cedar chest
That a brave wife sacredly keeps,
All hidden away 'neath the bullet-ploughed hat,
Where the tattered old gray coat sleeps;

And the years drift softly and silently down,
The spider has woven her sheen —
A mantle of peace — like a halo of rest —
Round the heart of the Old Canteen.

It was battered and bent in the storm of war,
Where the hurtling grape-shot fell,
And it breathes in its sleep the mystical tale
That the Southland must know so well.

Of the clashing of steel, of the carnage of death,
Of the woe in the days that have been;
But a tenderer tale than the pale stars knew
Lies asleep with the Old Canteen.

The battle was done, and the flash of the guns
Had ceased in the warm bloody rills,
And the night, like a pall of the dead, dropped down
On the grim field of Chaplin Hills.

But the field was won, to the soldier in gray,
And he lay in the lines between,
And weary and thirsty, he measured the drops
That were left in the Old Canteen.

There were dying and dead upon every side,
Loud curses, and prayers breathed low,
But the darkness concealed, nor would not reveal,
The face of a friend or foe;

And he thought, as he lay by his arms, of home,
Of love, and its tenderest scene,
And he pillowed his head with its throbbing pain
On the breast of the Old Canteen.

But the chilling winds sighed, and a gurgling moan
Crept on through the darkening mist,
And the words of distress woke the slumbering heart
That the bright dream of home had kissed.

He tenderly lifted the shattered young form,
With the veil of the night between;
The heart of a soldier beat earnest and true
Beneath the old battered Canteen.

A friend or a foe? — ah! what mattered it then,
Union blue, or the C. S. A.,
With piteous need in the jacket of blue,
Humanity's heed in the gray.

And the message was breathed to a stranger heart,
In the ear of the foe unseen,
And the quivering lips felt the cooling drip
From the depths of the Old Canteen.

" Tell my sisters I died for my country's cause,
That my end was a soldier's end;
And tell them, Oh! comrade " — a gasp and a pause —
" I died in the arms of a friend! "

Through the shivering mist, like the white rush-lights,
The pale stars struggled between,
With the deep silence cleft by the gurgling sigh
That arose from the Old Canteen.

ENVOI

Yes, lay it away in the old cedar chest,
With its tale of days that have been,
And light be the dreams, in the stillness of peace,
That may rest on the Old Canteen.