IN WAR TIME
Painting once more, on the empty air,
The wrathful battle's wavering glare.
"Hugh!" said Alice, and checked her fear,
"Speak to me, Hugh; your father is here."
"Father! what of my father? he
Is anything but a father to me;
What need I of a father, when
I have the hearts of a thousand men?"
"—Alas, Sir, he knows not me nor you!"
And with caressing words, the twain—
The man with all remorsefulness,
The woman with loving tenderness—
Soothed the soldier to rest anew,
And, as the madness left his brain,
Silently watched his sleep again.
2
And again the father and the wife,
Counting the precious sands of life,
Looked each askance, with those subtle eyes,
That probe through human mysteries
And hidden motives fathom well;
But the mild regard of Alice fell,
Meeting the other's contrite glance,
On his meek and furrowed countenance,
Scathed, as it seemed, with troubled thought:
"Surely, good angels have with him wrought,"
She murmured, and halted, even across
The sorrowful threshold of her loss,
To pity his thin and changing hair,
And her heart forgave him, unaware.
3
And he,—who saw how she still represt
A drear foreboding within her breast,
And, by her wifehood's nearest right,
Ever more closely through the night
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