 | Miami Woods : a golden wedding and other poems |  |
LOVE-LIFE ON THE ELKHORN.
1.
We met first 'mid the horrors of battle,While rang the red savage's yell,
Where some of our boldest and bravest
By rifle and tomahawk fell.
She stood by the door of a cabin,
Unshrinking, determined and grand,
From a loophole surveying the struggle,
An axe duly poised in her hand.
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2.
I bridled a steed that was halter'dIn a shed that stood haply behind,
And pointing the way that was safest,
She mounted and rode like the wind.
With night the fierce battle was over,
And we cared for our wounded and slain,
Yet till peace spread its wings o'er Kentucky
In beauty, we met not again.
3.
But peace brought the triumphs of labor,And scattered the shadows of gloom,
And the green fertile shores of the Elkhorn
Soon revel'd in beauty and bloom.
And then, as if heaven-directed,
We met where that cabin once stood,
And walk'd hand-in-hand where our heroes
Had gone down in battle and blood.
4.
And we met there again, and there plightedOur faith to each other for life;
And never on earth yet has Heaven
Dealt kindlier with husband and wife.
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Go back where that cabin once stood,
And thank God that soon out of the evil
We witness'd and shared, came the good.
IX.
At the close came kind words and good wishesFrom all, that were fervent and true;
And the drum and the fife and the trumpet
Pealed out again, “Red, White, and Blue!”
Then came, floating in from the porches,
A smother'd and twittering hum,
And the young clapp'd their hands as they shouted—
“The Pioneer Legion has come!”
And a dozen in buckskin-breeches,
By hunting-shirts overhung,
Walk'd in under caps of 'coonskin,
And saluted both old and young;
And they beat then the stately marches
Of time, on the notes of the years,
As they sang, to a fitting melody,
The Song of the Pioneers:—
| Miami Woods : a golden wedding and other poems | |