Wyandot County Republican. [volume] (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1869-1903, 1871-07-27
Poetry.
OLD MADELINE.

BIZ LUCY LARCoM.
OVER crumpled paper in her hand
Old Madeline wept.
Dimly the candle ficl cred on the stand;
Up the dark chimney fared smouldering brand
The whole house slept.
And Msdeline's care had made that sleeping sweet;
For all day long
sns pa5tered to and fro with Light & gaicR feet;
She hummed song
a broken singing, thin and pftiful,
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 thanksgivngs used to be,
In savage days before the land was free;
glee or catch;
No matter what-the children gathered near
For all and each.
Pathos of moaning wind through branches sere,
M1rth as of waves that break in sunset clear
On some lone beach.
Tonight she sat in silence. Every night
For year and year.
Here had she covered by the late candlelght
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.
Failing In the march, pursuing foes that fed,
Somewhere beside the road he lay, they said;
His grave none knew.
The tattered newspaper spread out to her
picture wide.
Among 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,
Where strange large roses opened hearts that
glowed,
And over him their blood red petals strewed
1nyo had rnia
For sweet maid Madeline had never guessed
Ralph cared for her
Save as friend while vainly he sought'rest,
Sure that no tender feeling in her breast
For him would stir.
And still his image buried she within,
Beneath her thought,
@ Mondes,ng what nat happier gis his heart would win
The war he sought.
And after he had fallen, a comrade came,
And told her how
Then Madeline said: None else my hand shall
And kept her VOW.
With her ne lightest wooing ever sped
No man might press
A soothing hand upon her weary head,
Or whisper comfort to the heart that bied
With loneliness.
For Madeline said: "Ralph surely wait. for me
Beyond Deaths gate;
And might miss him through eternity
By Joining fates with one less loved than he.
too can wait.
ST could not bear another lovers kiss,
Because feel
That somewhere from the heights Of heavenly
bliss
His spirit hither yearns. as mine to his,
Forever leal."
This to her silent heart alone she said,
Yfl nnn
That yet into her merriest singing strayed;
While all declared, :. A cheerfuler old maid
Was never known"
Nor ever was there. As her poor song worth
And witchery stole
From muffled minors. in them had Its birth,
Out of crushed joy sprang kiadliness and mirth
Her life was whole.
Whole, though it seemed fragment, rent apart
From its true end.
Downward. from deathless clinging reached heI
heart
Reader to comfort for its hidden smart
To all friend.
None saw her tears save God and her lost love,
Surely that dew
Kept memory blOssomins fre sh in fields above;
Against deaths bars he must have fed the dove
That futtering few.
So lived she faithful, an unwe dded bride.
His hand Of snow
Age laid in blessing on her head. She died.
Do Ralph and Madeline now walk side by side?
The angels know.
~. ?. Independent.