m and sharp crash of terrible battle, 'mid blood,
carnage, and death,
Comrades in arms, they fell side by side; one of them senseless, the
other feeling his life-blood flowing away...
Faintness came over him, breathing the sulphurous smoke, with the
tornado of battle stunning his brain--
Faintness--forgetfulness. A vision of childhood, of the sweet
Heaven-time of life, came to him...
He hoped it was death, coming as no king of terrors, but as a
beautiful flower-crowned child,
Bidding a hero welcome to the great halls of the laurel-wreathed
dead--those who died for their country.

From this dream of the Future came sharp awaking to life; rattling
away in the ambulance...
Crashing pains shooting wildly from leg to brains--the heart now and
then grasped with steel fingers and squeezed...
The knife and the tourniquet, the rapid surgical operation: the
poor, pale fellow maimed for life.

At home in a hospital kindly nursed and tended, hearing for the
first time in life the name of God--not taken in vain: seeing the
good DEEDS of true woman...
Knowing that should he die he would ask no gentler sounds to cheer
him on his road to the Hereafter, than the prayer he once heard
read by The Lady in Gray to a dying soldier in the same
hospital:... thus passed he back again to life.
Now convalescent he walks in the fresh morning up the quiet street,
under the leafy shadow of lindens... he and his comrade in battle.

In the faces of both you may see that they know how earnest is
life...
The Angel of Death on the battle-field raised the veil of the
Future: transient the glimpse, but they will never forget it...
The Angel of Mercy here in the hospital bound up their wounds,
cheering their hearts with kind looks and well-spoken words of
true sympathy...
Solemnly earnest and beautiful is Life to these two wounded soldiers.

The lame one is weary, and halts by the steps of a handsome house;
his comrade with one arm helps him sit down there, on the lowest
step, leaning against the white marble balustrade.
Through lace and silk curtains, from drawing-room window, looks down the
street a beautiful woman, waiting impatiently carriage, coachman, and
footman, to carry her grandly to church.
Up comes the carriage; wide open the doors of the house: Madame
descends...
How is this?... She stops by the two