all my pain, O mother mine! I only prayed one prayer.

''Through all my pain--(and ne'er I knew what suffering was before!)--
I only prayed to see your face, to hear your voice once more;
The cold moon shone into my eyes--my prayer seemed all in vain.'
'My poor deluded boy!' she sobbed; her mother-fount of pain
O'erflowing down her gentle cheeks in drops like thunder-rain.

''Accursed be he whose cruel hand has wrought my son such ill!'
The boy sprang upright at the word, and shrieked aloud, 'Be still!
You know not what you say. O God! how shall I tell the tale!
How shall I smite her as she stands!' and with a moaning wail
He prone among the pillows dropped, his visage ashen pale.

''It was a bloody field,' he said, at last, like one who dozed;
'I know not how the day began--I know not how it closed;
I only know we fought like fiends, begrimed with blood and dust,
And did our duty to a man, as every soldier must,
And gave the rebels ball for ball, and paid them thrust for thrust.

'But when our gallant General rode up and down the line,
The sunlight striking on his sword until it flashed like wine,
And cried aloud (God bless his lips!) with such a cheery laugh,
'Charge bayonets, boys! Pitch into them, and scatter them like chaff!'
One half our men were drunk with blood, and mad the other half.

''My veins ran fire. O Heaven! hide the horrors of that plain!
We charged upon the rebel ranks and cut them down like grain.
One bright-haired man ran on my steel--I pierced him through and through;
The blood upspirted from his wound and sprinkled me like dew.
'Twas strange, but as I looked I thought of Cain and him he slew.

''Some impulse moved me to kneel down and touch him where he fell,
I turned him o'er--I saw his face--the sight was worse than hell!
_There lay my brother_--Curse me not!--pierced by _my_ bayonet!'
O Christ! the pathos of that cry I never shall forget--
Men turned away to hide their tears, for every eye was wet.

'And the hard-featured woman-nurse, a sturdy wench was she,
Dropped down among us, in a swoon, from very sympathy.
'I saw his face, the same dear face which once (would we had died
In those old days of innocence!) was ever by my side,
At bed or board, at school or play, so fresh and merry-eyed!

''And now to see it white and set--to know the deed was mine!
A madness seized me as I knelt, accursed in God's sunshine.