The age-herald., 1900-03-18
THE MURMUR
 OF THE WORLD


 Though heaven alone records the tear, And fame shall never know her story,
 Her heart has shed a drop as dear
 As eer bedewed the field of glory! ''The wife who girds her husbands sword. Mid little ones who weep or wonder, l And bravely speaks the cheering word, What though her heart be rent asunder, Doomed nightly In her dreams to hear The bolts of death around nsm rattle, | Hath shed as sacred blood as e'er
 Was poured upon the field of battle!
 '"Iyhe mother who eonceals her grief. While to her breast her son she presses, Then breathes a few brave words and brief, Kissing the patriot brow she blesses, With no one but her secret God
 To know the pain that weighs upon her, Sheds holy blood e'er the sod
 Received on freedoms field of honor? The rosters of our own dead come hither from the far sunny isles of the splendid Orient, and the rosters of our kinsmen dead
 upon the far veldt, make up the tear-wash- ed chapters in glory's grim story Of fame;
 and two proud peoples mourn the death Of brave men, yet rejoice that there has noG
 dried in the veins the brave blood or an
 imperial race whose destiny is to win the
 world for God and human liberty! The
 spirit of Greasy, of Agincourt, of Waterloo Balaclava, Lexington, Bennington, ana Yorktown still triumphs for freedom where winds the Tugela and where spreads the
 poisonous pools of Luzon. It is glorious to die in pursuing the way of such incom- parable splendor-tfle worlds material and spiritual redemption. The red coat and the blue represent all that is worthiest to strive
 for whilst enlightment invades the regions of darkness.
 But the brave at home are of mould as
 heroic as the brave in the field. The patrioe Iblood does not come alone from the hearts
 that bleed upon the firing tine. surely if there be a boon, an offering that neaVeh holds dear. it is the last Hbaion that hp- ertv draws from a heart that breaks ana lbeeds in her cause! Yet the soul that xorest suffers from martial strife hears the
 thunder of the gums not at all save only in dreams, or when the tears of brave fears fam fastest. Upon the steeps of San Juan
 ended human suffering for many soldaer
 but the deadenEng grief of devoted women
 upon many a hdIlside, in many a low green
 valley, was deepened; and the years shall
 mot give surcease of sorrow. The soldier
 rests his warfare over; but woman weeps
 on and is not comforted. Pride in valor-
 ous deeds of her dead never yet healed the mothers bruised spirit of devotion. The Spartan women gave the ebon hair
 of their heads to make strings for the battle-bows of the warriors, and spoke fearless farewells when the brave marched away; but thousand hearts broke when Leonidas fell, and women's tears might have washed with holy water the pass Of Thermopylae. The one messenger of dis aster, tine one herald of that story of woe, was slain that he did not fall with his comrades; women waiting the While! When the beautiful patrician mother stroked the golden head of Horatio Nelson and pressed the golden heart of the patriclan boy to
 her own aching breast, she offered him a sacrifice to God and the king. That boy s
 career of unparalleled glory upon the sea
 never could have soothed the mothers pain,
 never stllled the small voice of the mothers
 love! Idle to tell her of her boys vast cloud of fardistant, storm-beaten ships standing between the Grand Army and the throne of her king and the worlds do- minion. Idle to remind her of tmperis2nable fame of Trafalgar and the proud, pathetic death when the proudest of all mans vic tories was won. kiss me, Hardy" off the dying admiral were to her the crack of doom! Idle to point 0her ito St. Paul's, mo- Golest elf monuments. Proud she would be
 with the pride of the mother of the most illustrious; but stricken with the grief of the mother of the dearest dead!
 And the maiden clinging to the gate and
 consecrating 1t with her tears as she loving
 ly looks upon the vanishing figure of the
 martial lover, erect reliant, brave proud
 in his proud country's proud livery the pain of parting struggling with his hope
 and his pride and his heroism for the mas-
 tery; the little gate and the little sweet
 heart strangely blending with scenes of
 battle, the charge, the rout, the victory!-
 under the soldiers jacket the heart beats
 less heavy than the heart above the closed
 gate, closed to shut out joyNand offer de-
 fiance to hope. By and by comes story Of
 carnage and anxiety claims the brave at home. Other stories follow fast and follow
 faster, and day on day brings the com mander's roll of the fallen Hopes voice | sinks to low whisper. Life is chilled in 1 finitely. In the calm of the Sabbath morn- ] ing, perchance, there comes the roll of all
 rolls to the brave at home. Each name is
 (hurriedly scanned, and the cry is no-no-
 no-no-no! down the long roster of the eternally resting valiant. Nay! not so. Near the end there is a name that burns and sears as by fire. Heart-strings are
 clutched as by a wise of steel. A loved life Is gone out under the old flag, where the
 battle ragged fiercest The end of hope is
 come. The burden bends lower still the
 brave at home. After awhile there comes from over the seas a poor little parcel with a picture and blossoms given fresh-plucked
 at the gate, now faded brown. These me-
 morials of sleeping soldier take their place with a woman's treasures.
 | But the brave at home are not alone those | women who await the issue of battle in | noisome land of Luzon or upon windswept | veldt. Hearts grow weary, ache and break | for causes other than those of war; causes | that are without the ennobling spirit of 1 devotion to race. or country, or creed