Poems (Blake)/The Picket

For works with similar titles, see The Picket.
​
THE PICKET.
Slow across the dull Potomac fades the dim November light,And the darkness, like a mantle, folds the tented field from sight;In the shadowed wood beside me breaks the wind with quiv'ring moan,      Floating, sighing,      Falling, dying,    As I keep my watch alone.
Forward, backward, stern and fearless, till the moonbeam's silver rayBreaks in many a gleaming arrow from my bayonet's point away;So I pace the picket lonely, while apart from mortal sight      Watch I'm keeping      With the sleeping    Loved ones far away to-night.
​
On the morrow comes Thanksgiving, when from households far and wideRound the hearths the children gather,—seek once more the old fireside;Fill once more the vacant places that they left so long ago,      Self-relying,      Proudly trying    All life's unknown joy and woe.
On the morrow comes Thanksgiving! Not as long ago it came,Bright, without a shade of sorrow lingering round its good old name;War has waved his crimson banner, and beneath its blood stains rest      All his glory,      Dim and gory,    Laid on many a lifeless breast.
Wife and child and aged mother wake at morn to bend the knee,And, around the hearthstone glowing, supplicate their God for me;Near my vacant chair they gather, blending tears amid their prayers,— ​      He will hear them,      And anear them    Will my spirit kneel with theirs.
Nor is darkness all around us; we can thank our God for might,For the strength which He has given still to struggle for the Right;For the soul so grandly beating in the nation's onward way,      For the spirit      We inherit    On this new Thanksgiving day!
Still the blue Potomac ripples like a silver thread below,And amid the sullen darkness rises high the camp-fire's glow;So I pace the picket lonely, while apart from mortal sight      Watch I'm keeping      With the sleeping    Loved ones far away to-night.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.