The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1871-11-10
OLD MADELINE.
By LUCY LARcoM.

By LUCY LARCoN
Over a crumpled paper in her hand
Old Madeline Wept.
RImi{ n H the dC9 candle aiekeres & on the stand
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
And while her broom made nook and corners
She hummed song.
A broken singiaE. 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, ;"
An anthem snatch,
That sung in far thanksgivings used to be,
In savage days before the land was free;
A Slee or catch;
No mattered what-the children gather near
For all and each,
Patho5 Of moaning winds through branches
Biirth as Of waves that break in sunset clear
On some lone beach.
To night she sat in silence. Every night
Here had She covered BY the late candlelight
Over the worn out print. and blurred her sight
Reading through tears.
To one name. written on the list Of dead"
Her tired eyes grew,
Falling in the march. pursuing foes that aed.
His grave none knew.
The tattered newspaper spread out tchor
Among vast, alien hills, the battle'sstir.
A death-bed where n one came to minister
To him who died.
A spot Of green beside mountain road,
Whore strange large roses ope'd hearts that
And over him their bIood-red petals strewed
Whom love had missed.
For sweet maid Madeline had never sguessed
Ralph cared for her
Save rs a friend; while vainly he sought res {,
Sure that no tender feeling in her breast
For him wO1ld stir.
And stillh image buried she within,
Beneath her thought,
Wondering what happier sirI his heart would
She drowned her vexing dreams in work-dayt
The war he sought.
And after he had fallen n comrade came,
And to her how
Upon the battle eve he brea4hed her name;
Then Madeline saidi None else my hand
And kept her VOW.
With her no highest wooing ever sped,
No man might press
& soothing hand upon her weary head,
With loneliness.
For Madeline said; ''Ralph surely waits for me
Beyond deaths gate
And light miss him through eternity
By joining fates with one less loved than he'
l, too, can wait.
''I could not bear another lovers kiss,
Because 1 feel
That somewhere from the heights of heavenly
bliss
His spirit hither yearns, as mine to his,
Forever Lead
This to her silent heart alone she said,
flushing its moan
That yet into her merriest singing stayed;
While ell declared "A more cheerful old maid
Was never known"
Nor was there. As her poor song worth
And witchery stole
From muffied minors in them had his birth.
Out of crushed joy spranE kindliness and ninth;
Her life was VStole.
Whole, though it seemed fragment. rent
From its true end,
Downward from desthiess clinging reached her
heart,
Reader to comfort for its hidden smart,
To all friend.
None saw her tears save God and her last love,
Surely tha dew
Kept memory biossoming fresh in fields above;
Agains: death g bars he must have felt the dove
That hutbering 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 sldct
4h0 ahAol' Aho"' IN V r,d.o,,J,sf