Page:Poems Trask.djvu/124

Art thinking of the coming morn,
 When blood-red shall the banners glow,
And on the tented field without
 The deadly columns storm the foe?
When 'mid the smoke, and clang of steel,
 And 'mid the strife of carnage dire,
Thy stalwart form shall lead the van,
 And meet the death-hot, murderous fire?

Is't fear that blanches thy stern brow?
 Fear! should a soldier know the word?
Come life or death, what matters it
 When the war-trump his blood has stirred?
Speak, soldier! ah, thy cheek is flushed,—
 A tender gleam, like yon soft star,
Lights up thine eye as it is turned
 Toward the Northern sky afar.

He answers not. Wherefore's the need?
 He thinks not of the battle's din,
Nor of the gloomy, bristling walls
 That shut the grim old fortress in:
He knows whose orchard-trees are white
 With wildest wealth of rosy snow;
He knows the red-lipped May has kissed
 The clover-blossoms into glow.

He sees the low, brown cottage-house,
 Half hidden 'neath the sheltering trees,
That gray and mossy lift with pride
 The peerless growth of centuries;