A Cup of Cold Water

This poem was written by Ellen Murray, a co-founder of the Penn School on St. Helena Island in South Carolina. The poem was originally published in Our Daily Fare on June 16, 1864.

By Ellen Murray

The wide hot field, where smoke and steam
Of battle only helped the beam
Of south-sun at its noon.
Where trench on was filled across
By dying men and struggling horse,
Where death was priceless boon.

There waking from the sudden sound
A soldier on the trampled ground
Was parching with his thirst;
And asked, but only heard, hard by
How dying rebels in reply,
With bitter anguish cursed.

It seemed to him in fevered trance
He saw the sparkling runlets dance
By his New England home,
And take their way with whirl and leap
In emerald coolness down the steep,
To break in light and foam.

Upon the slope the flowers of May,
The mountain breezes round him play,
He cannot feel their cool.
Yet watches from the rock's bold side
How trout and minnow dart and glide
Across the dark, still pool.

He starts to feel his bitter pain
The burning fever-thirst again,
And moans beneath the sun.
But tender hands were near to bear
To cooling shade and fresher air, -
- Gently their work is done.
He drinks the ice-cooled cup they give
And murmurs how the angels lives
By waters pure and clear,
That break in ripples on the shore
And those who drink thirst nevermore;
Then sleeps to waken there.

Blessed be they throughout the land
Whose undismayed and tireless hand,
Present in sorest need,
Has help and comfort freely given, the love of man, the smile of heaven
Be just and fitting meed.