The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1871-10-27
Alfred =. Horsley
OLD MADELINE.
BY LUCY LARCON.

AH q = IL -
Over a crumpled paper in her hand
Dimly the candle fiickerod on the stand;
Up the dark chimney fared q smoldering
The whole house slept.
And Madeline's care had made that sleeping
For all day long
She pattered two and fro with light quick feet;
She hummed Q song. ,roF
A broken singing. thin and pitiful,
and yet in tune.
With all that makes great lyrics musical,
It stopped the children, hurrying out of school.
At night or noon.
Now quaint hymn, now Jamie on the sea, I"
An anthem snatch,
That sung in far Thanksgiving used to be,
In savage days before the land was free;
No omattered what-the children gathered near
Patho. of moaning winds through branches
Mirth as of waves that break In sunset clear
On some lone beach.
To night she sat In silence. Every night
For year and year
Here bad she covered By the late candlelisht
Over the worn eutprint. and blurred her sight
Heading through tears
To one name. written on the list of dead"
Her tired eyes grew,
someWhere en- I Seside the road he lay, % they said,
His grave none knew.
The tattered newspaper spread out to her
A picture wide.
Amorg vast, alien hills, the battles stir.
A death bed where none came to minister
To him who died.
A spot of green beside mountain road.
By warm winds kissed. -,
Where strange large roses ope'd hearts that
glowed, = eAA-- -
And over him their blood-r petals strewcd
Whom love had missed.
For sweet maid Madeline had never guessed
Ralph cared for her
Save as a friend; while vainly he sought rest,
Sure th,t no tender feeling in her breast
For him would stir.
And still his IMAGE buricd she within,
Beneath her thought,
Wondering what happier girl his heart would
She drowned her vexing dreams in work-day
The war he sought.
And after he had fallen comfade came,
Upon the battle eve be breathed her name;
Then Madeline said; None else my hand
shall claim.
And kept her VOW.
With her no highest wooing ever sped.
No man might pres
A soothing hand upon her weary head,
Or whisper comfort to the heart that bled
With loneliness.
For Madeline said; "Ralph surely waits for me
Beyond deaths gate;,
And might miss him through eternity
By Joining fates with one less loved than he:
L, too, can wait.
II could not bear another lovers kiss,
Because feed ..T
That somewhere from the heights of heavenly
bliss ........ b..
His spiFFs Fa1iHs1 hithsr ,yyss ysasrn' as mine to his
This TO her silent henrt alone she said.
flushing its moan.
That yet into her merriest singing stayed;
While all declared "A more cheerful old maid
Was never known"
Nor was there. As her POOR song worth
And witchery stole
From mufled minors. in them had his birth.
Out of crushed Joy spranG kindliness and mirth;
Her life was whole.
Whole, though it seemed fragment. rent
apart
From its true end.
Downward from deathless clinging reached her
heart,
Reader to comfort for its hidden smart,
To all q friend.
None saw her tears save God and her st love.
Surely that dew
Kept memory b.ossoming fresh in fields above !;
Agains. death bars he IN ust have felt the dove
That fluttering few.
So lived she faithful, an unwedded bride.
His hand ofsnow
Age laid in blessing on her head. She died.
Do Ralph and Madeline now walk side by sidef
The angels know.
my. Ladcpendcat.