WHEN the war-drums beat and the trumpets blare,
When banners flaunt in the stormy air,
When at thought of the deeds that must soon be done,
The hearts of a thousand leap up as one,
Who could not rush through the din and smoke,
The cannon's crash and the sabre stroke,
Scarce conscious of ebbing blood or breath,
With a laugh for wounds and a scoff at death?
But when on the sullen breeze there comes
No thrill of trumpets nor throb of drums,
But only the wail of the sick laid low
By the treacherous blight of a viewless foe--
Who, then, will upgird his loins for fight
With the loathsome pest in the poisoned night,
No martial music his pulse to start,
But the still, small voice of the ruthful heart?
Who then? Behold him, the calm, the brave,
On his billowy path to an alien grave!
Serene in the charm of his God-like will,
This soldier is armored to save, not kill.
Ah! swiftly he speeds on the mist-bound stream
This pilgrim wrapped in his tender dream,
His vision of help for the sick laid low
By the evil spell of all ambushed foe.
Ah! swiftly he speeds 'mid the hollow boom
Of bells that ire tolling to death and doom,
Till even the sounds of the bells grow still;
For the hands of their ringers are lax and chill.
And the hum of the mourners is heard no more
On the misty slope and the vacant shore,
And the few frail creatures that greet him seem
But the ghosts of men by a phantom stream.
Still the hero his own great soul enticed
To suffer and toil in the name of Christ,
He follows wherever his Lord had led,
To the famished hut or the dying bed.
He medicines softly the fevered pain;
To the starving be bringeth his golden grain;
And ever before him and ever above
Is the sheen of the unfurled wings of love.
Meanwhile, in his distant home are those
That his going has robbed of their sweet repose.
The days pass by them like leaden years;
The nights are bitter with tears and fears--
Till at last, by the lightning glamour sped,
Comes a name and date, with the one word, "Dead!"
And the arms of the smitten are lifted high,
And the heavens are rent by an anguished cry!
Dead! dead! Vain word for the wise to hear!
How false its echo on heart and ear!
To the earth and earth's he may close his eyes,
But who dares tell us a martyr dies?
And of him just gone it were best to say
That in some charmed hour of night or day--
Having given us all that his soul could give--
Brave Hiram Benner began to live.
