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DICK'S

RECITATIONS AND READINGS.

NUMBER SIX.

THE SPANISH. MOTHER.

SIR FRANCIS HASTINGS DOYLE.

Supposed to be related by a veteran French officer.

Yes! I have served that noble chief throughout his proud career,
And heard the bullets whistle past in lands both far and near-
Amidst Italian flowers, below the dark pines of the North,
Where'er the Emperor willed to pour his clouds of battle forth.
"Twas then a splendid sight to see, though terrible, I ween,
How his vast spirit filled and moved the wheels of the machine;
Wide sounding leagues of sentient steel, and fires that lived to kill,
Were but the echo of his voice, the body of his will.

But now my heart is darkened with shadows that rise and fall
Between the sunlight and the ground to sadden and appall:
The woeful things both seen and done we heeded little then,
But they return, like ghosts, to shake the sleep of aged men.
The German and the Englishman were each an open foe,
And open hatred hurled us back from Russia's blinding snow;
Intenser far, in blood-red light, like fires unquenched, remain
The dreadful deeds wrung forth by war from the brooding soul of

Spain.

I saw a village in the hills, as silent as a dream,

Nought stirring but the summer sound of a merry mountain stream; The evening star just smiled from heaven with its quiet silver eye, And the chestnut woods were still and calm beneath the deepening sky.

But in that place, self-sacrificed, nor man nor beast we found,

Nor fig-tree on the sun-touched slope, nor corn upon the ground; Each roofless hut was black with smoke, wrenched up each trailing vine,

Each path was foul with mangled meat and floods of wasted wine.
We had been marching, travel-worn, a long and burning way,
And when such welcoming we met, after that toilsome day,
The pulses in our maddened breasts were human hearts no more,
But, like the spirit of a wolf, hot on the scent of gore.

We lighted on one dying man, they slew him where he lay;

His wife, close-clinging, from the corpse they tore and wrenched

away;

They thundered in her widowed ears, with frowns and curses grim, "Food, woman-food and wine, or else we tear thee limb from

limb."

The woman, shaking off his blood, rose, raven-haired and tall, And our stern glances quailed before one sterner far than all. "Both food and wine," she said, "I have; I meant them for the dead,

But ye are living still, and so let them be yours instead."

The food was brought, the wine was brought out of a secret place,
But each one paused aghast, and looked into his neighbor's face;
Her haughty step and settled brow, and chill, indifferent mien,
Suited so strangely with the gloom and grimness of the scene.
She glided here, she glided there, before our wondering eyes,
Nor anger showed, nor shame, nor fear, nor sorrow, nor surprise;
At every step, from soul to soul a nameless horror ran,
And made us pale and silent as that silent murdered man.

She sat, and calmly soothed her child into a slumber sweet;
Calmly the bright blood on the floor crawled red around our feet.
On placid fruits and bread lay soft the shadows of the wine,
And we like marble statues glared-a chill, unmoving line,

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