The Old Soldier's Story: Poems and Prose Sketches. Riley James Whitcomb

      Ah! at last alone, love!

      Now the band may play

      Till its sweetest tone, love,

      Swoons and dies away!

      They who most will miss us

      We're not caring for —

      Who of them could kiss us

      In the corridor?

      Had we only known, dear,

      Ere this long delay,

      Just how all alone, dear,

      We might waltz away,

      Then for hours, like this, love,

      We are longing for,

      We'd have still to kiss, love,

      In the corridor!

      Nestle in my heart, love;

      Hug and hold me close —

      Time will come to part, love,

      Ere a fellow knows;

      There! the Strauss is ended —

      Whirl across the floor:

      Isn't waltzing splendid

      In the corridor?

      Louella Wainie! where are you?

      Do you not hear me as I cry?

      Dusk is falling; I feel the dew;

      And the dark will be here by and by:

      I hear no thing but the owl's hoo-hoo!

      Louella Wainie! where are you?

      Hand in hand to the pasture bars

      We came loitering, Lou and I,

      Long ere the fireflies coaxed the stars

      Out of their hiding-place on high.

      O how sadly the cattle moo!

      Louella Wainie! where are you?

      Laughingly we parted here —

      "I will go this way," said she,

      "And you will go that way, my dear" —

      Kissing her dainty hand at me —

      And the hazels hid her from my view.

      Louella Wainie! where are you?

      Is there ever a sadder thing

      Than to stand on the farther brink

      Of twilight, hearing the marsh-frogs sing?

      Nothing could sadder be, I think!

      And ah! how the night-fog chills one through.

      Louella Wainie! where are you?

      Water-lilies and oozy leaves —

      Lazy bubbles that bulge and stare

      Up at the moon through the gloom it weaves

      Out of the willows waving there!

      Is it despair I am wading through?

      Louella Wainie! where are you?

      Louella Wainie, listen to me,

      Listen, and send me some reply,

      For so will I call unceasingly

      Till death shall answer me by and by —

      Answer, and help me to find you too!

      Louella Wainie! where are you?

      The text: Love thou thy fellow man!

      He may have sinned; – One proof indeed,

      He is thy fellow, reach thy hand

      And help him in his need!

      Love thou thy fellow man. He may

      Have wronged thee – then, the less excuse

      Thou hast for wronging him. Obey

      What he has dared refuse!

      Love thou thy fellow man – for, be

      His life a light or heavy load,

      No less he needs the love of thee

      To help him on his road.

      "He bore the name of William Brown" —

      His name, at least, did not go down

      With him that day

      He went the way

      Of certain death where duty lay.

      He looked his fate full in the face —

      He saw his watery resting-place

      Undaunted, and

      With firmer hand

      Held others' hopes in sure command. —

      The hopes of full three hundred lives —

      Aye, babes unborn, and promised wives!

      "The odds are dread,"

      He must have said,

      "Here, God, is one poor life instead."

      No time for praying overmuch —

      No time for tears, or woman's touch

      Of tenderness,

      Or child's caress —

      His last "God bless them!" stopped at "bless" —

      Thus man and engine, nerved with steel,

      Clasped iron hands for woe or weal,

      And so went down

      Where dark waves drown

      All but the name of William Brown.

      Why are they written – all these lovers' rhymes?

      I catch faint perfumes of the blossoms white

      That maidens drape their tresses with at night,

      And, through dim smiles of beauty and the din

      Of the musicians' harp and violin,

      I hear, enwound and blended with the dance,

      The voice whose echo is this utterance, —

      Why are they written – all these lovers' rhymes?

      Why are they written – all these lovers' rhymes?

      I see but vacant windows, curtained o'er

      With webs whose architects forevermore

      Race up and down their slender threads to bind

      The buzzing fly's wings whirless, and to wind

      The living victim in his winding sheet. —

      I shudder, and with whispering lips repeat,

      Why are they written – all these lovers' rhymes?

      Why are they written – all these lovers' rhymes?

      What will you have for answer? – Shall I say

      That he who sings the merriest roundelay

      Hath neither joy nor hope? – and he who sings

      The lightest, sweetest, tenderest of things

      But utters moan on moan of keenest pain,

      So aches his heart to ask and ask in vain,

      Why are they written – all these lovers' rhymes?