Margaret Junkin Preston
I.
Ah! the happy Christmas times!
Times we all remember;–
Times that flung a ruddy glow
O’er the gray December;–
Will they never come again,
With their song and story?
Never wear a remnant more
Of their olden glory?
Must the little children miss
Still the festal token?
Must their realm of young romance
All be marred and broken?
Must the mother promise on,
While her smiles dissemble,
And she speaks right quietly,
Lest her voice should tremble:–
“Darlings! wait till father comes–
Wait–and we’ll discover
Never were such Christmas times,
When the war is over!”
II.
Underneath the midnight sky,
Bright with starry beauty,
Sad, the shivering sentinel
Treads his round of duty:
For his thoughts are far away,
Far from strife and battle,
As he listens dreamingly,
To his baby’s prattle;–
As he clasps his sobbing wife,
Wild with sudden gladness,
Kisses all her tears away–
Chides her looks of sadness–
Talks of Christmas nights to come,–
And his step grows lighter,
Whispering, while his stiffening hand
Grasps his musket tighter:–
“Patience, love!–keep heart! keep hope!
To your weary rover,
What a home our home will be,
When the war is over!”
III.
By the twilight Christmas fire,
All her senses laden
With a weight of tenderness,
Sits the musing maiden:
From the parlor’s cheerful blaze,
Far her visions wander,
To the white tent gleaming bright,
On the hill-side yonder.
Buoyant in her brave, young love,
Flushed with patriot honour,
No misgiving, no fond fear,
Flings its shade upon her.
Though no mortal soul can know
Half the love she bears him,
Proudly, for her country’s sake,
From her heart she spares him.
–God be thanked!–she does not dream,
That her gallant lover
Will be in a soldier’s grave,
When the war is over!
IV.
‘Midst the turmoil and the strife
Of the war-tide’s rushing,
Every heart its separate woe
In its depths is hushing.
Who has time for tears, when blood
All the land is steeping?
–In our poverty we grudge
Even the waste of weeping!
But when quiet comes again,
And the bands, long broken,
Gather round the hearth, and breathe
Names now seldom spoken–
_Then_ we’ll miss the precious links–
Mourn the empty places–
Read the hopeless “_Nevermore_,”
In each other’s faces!
–Oh! what aching, anguish’d hearts
O’er lone graves will hover,
With a new, fresh sense of pain,
When the war is over!
V.
Stern endurance, bitterer still,
Sharp with self-denial,
Fraught with loftier sacrifice,
Fuller far of trial–
Strews our flinty path of thorns–
Marks our bloody story–
Fits us for the victor’s palm–
Weaves our robe of glory!
Shall we faint with God above,
And His strong arm under–
And the cold world gazing on,
In a maze of wonder?
No! with more resistless march,
More resolved endeavor,
Press we onward–struggle still,
Fight and win forever!
–Holy peace will heal all ills,
Joy all losses cover,
Raptures rend our Southern skies,
When the war is over!
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Analysis (AI Assisted)
This poem moves through five scenes, each showing how war interferes with the ordinary meaning of Christmas. Instead of treating the holiday as a pause or a refuge, the poem uses it to show how deeply conflict reaches into private life. Each section takes a different vantage point—family, soldier, sweetheart, community, and finally a kind of collective resolve. The repeated phrase “when the war is over” becomes the anchor. It’s a promise that keeps everyone moving, even though the poem keeps hinting that the promise can’t possibly cover the cost.
The first section focuses on the home, especially the children. The poem doesn’t dwell on political arguments or military strategy. It shows absence in a domestic form: gifts missing, celebrations subdued, a mother forced to reassure her children without believing her own words. The strain is in the gap between what she says and what she feels. This is where the poem begins to show the everyday toll of war, without dramatics—just a family trying to hold things together.
The second section switches to the soldier on night duty. Instead of the misery of cold or danger, the poem follows his drifting thoughts. The contrast is stark: the quiet of snow and stars against the warmth of an imagined homecoming. He steadies himself with the same phrase the mother used, but here it functions more like a survival mechanism. The poem doesn’t question his optimism; it simply shows the mental work required to keep going. The musket in his tightening hand becomes a physical sign of that determination.
The third section focuses on a young woman whose confidence rests on love, patriotism, and imagination. Unlike the mother and the soldier, she hasn’t been shaken by doubt. The poem lets her stay in that space of belief, even though the narrator quietly tells the reader she’s wrong. The poem doesn’t criticize her. It uses her as an example of how hope can be both sustaining and painfully naive. The section ends with the blunt truth that her lover will not return, but she doesn’t know it yet. That disconnect is the emotional core of this stanza.
The fourth section widens the view to the broader community. During the war itself, people push their grief aside because survival demands it. This is an observation that doesn’t rely on patriotic language; it’s closer to a social fact. People can only feel so much when crisis is constant. The poem predicts that when peace finally comes, mourners will feel everything they postponed. Empty seats, missing family members, and conversations that can no longer happen will fill the silence. This section removes any illusion that peace automatically restores what was lost. It places the real weight of war not on the battlefield but on the years afterward.
The fifth section shifts tone again, this time toward resolve. It leans into rhetoric about sacrifice, endurance, and divine support. The poem gathers the community’s suffering and shapes it into a narrative of purpose. Peace is imagined as something sacred and complete, capable of covering every loss. This vision isn’t subtle—it’s an attempt to give meaning to destruction by placing it inside a victory narrative. Whether the reader accepts that is another question. The poem’s earlier sections have already planted doubts about the cost of war and whether any victory can balance it.
Taken together, these five parts form a portrait of a society trying to stay intact while war eats away at its foundations. The poem doesn’t argue about causes or outcomes. Instead, it shows how ordinary people brace themselves with imagined futures because the present gives them nothing else to hold onto. The repeated phrase “when the war is over” becomes more than a hope—it becomes a strategy for survival. But by the end, the poem has made it clear that peace will bring its own confrontation with loss, and that even the most confident promises made during the war will be tested when reality arrives.