NON RESPONDAT

AWIDOW lives across the way,
 Lonely and sad, in sable weeds:
With her own hands she clothes and feeds
Herself and little daughter, May.

I see her in the early dawn
Busy about her daily toil,
Tilling the mellow garden soil
Or dressing weeds from out the lawn.

And later still I see her sit
With busy needle at her door,
While fitful shadows on the floor
With every zephyr wave and flit.

The weary gurgling of the rill,
The honey bee’s low monotone,
The waving shade, the pine trees’ moan,
The lowing kine upon the hill,

The robins in their leafy screens,
All, all remind her of the Lost
Who calmly sleeps with white hands crossed,
Beneath the sod at New Orleans.

He was but one among the throng
Who nobly fought at Pleasant Hill,
And many a gallant fellow will
Be missed as sadly and as long.

But I have lost a brother, and
The widow mourns by night and day
The father of her little May
Who molders in his grave of sand.

We grieve; but we are proud to know,
When plunging shot and shrieking shell
Made Pleasant Hill an earthly hell,
His face was ever to the foe.

O fearless heart and ready hand!
O brother of my early youth
Whose word was synonym for truth,
We greet thee in thy bed of sand.

Thy calm brave face and eye serene
We may not look upon again;
But we will keep, thro’ joy and pain,
The leaves of memory evergreen.