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.

Part of a series of articles titled
Poems by Ellen Murray.

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Dying In The Hospital

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We Forget Them Not

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• Reconstruction Era National Historical Park

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