| We wandered by the willows
My little love and I; Beside the crested billows, Beneath the jewelled sky. Our troth had long been spoken, Our nuptial day long set; But now my voice was broken, And her fair cheek was wet. One fear, one bitter feeling___ Each fully understood: A cannon's cruel pealing, A maiden's widowhood! She whispered as we parted With anguished trembling sigh, "I live, but broken hearted, You go away to die." I went away to battle; Faced bayonet and ball, Where men like herded cattle By thousands fight and fall. Yet not a mark I carried, When mustered out of strife; And not an hour I tarried From her my soul, my life. Home, home at last! ___Ah, sorrow. A bell bewailed the dead. "With joy 'twill ring tomorrow When she and I are wed," "When she and I are married !" I waited by the tract, The mourner's carriage carried Her mother past in black. She read my face and nodded. I staggered, dumb with grief. "O grave, untimely sodded! O Deaths relentless thief?' Lost loved one, thy forebodings Were merely disarranged; For me thou felt their goadings, But we are interchanged. __Harry Edward Mills. |
Select Sunflowers
Harry Edward Mills
(Fort Scott: Sunflower Press. 1901)
Pages 51-52
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