The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1913-07-09
A Guess AS To What Has
Become OF Them.
prose POEM, TRUE AND TIMELY
On Past Nuptial Days and
the Fate Awaiting the
NewlywedS.
TRUTHS AND ILLUSIONS MIXED


Now that June is here, rose
EMPOWERED, and life is singing its
nuptial song, an old and distressing
question, possibly never to be an
swered, recurs: What becomes of
all the worlds sweethearts?
Where do the fame-clad Of to-
day and those who strobe through
the entertainments of sweet unnum-
bered yesterdays go? Whittier van
ishes the great Illusion? Is it
over the hills and far away to the
ravishing music the piper plays?
kNestled somewhere in the land of
Never-Can-Be is there some quaint
Hamelin town where the spirit of
dead Junes and those yet to die
stands silent sentinel waiting for
their return? No man can say.
Looking about on world full of
commonplace married folk in an at
mosphere of greasy domesticity the
question becomes doubly mystify-
ing. There were girls of rose and
amber, girls like violets, sweet and
fiuttery; girls like hooded peoples,
\slender and proud; small, fair
vgirls; girls in dimities, girls with
elbow sleeves, girls-ig poke bon.
nets-girls, girls, girls, girls
weeping girls, petulant girls, cold
girls. And there were boys-ath-
letic boys, ambitious boys. poor
boys, rich boys, domineering boys,
Willie boys, all in the heart of
Junetime. And they vowed and
they sighed and they cried. The
days We're of gold and the nights
pendulant and silvery. Always
hand in hand they were walking
\ amid secret gardens blown with
PROSE dust and lingering by foun
tains whose murmurings none but
they could hear. For them and
none other were hung the star
studded twilights, and for them
alone the mystic dawn, the lazy
beds of daffodil in sunset sky.
They trod the earth with feet
shod in flame and shamed heaven
with their ecstacies. Gone, all
gone. Yesterday one there was who
saw Kate bargaining for 10 cents
worth of lettuce at the corner gro
Gerry, and the light of great illu-
sion had gone from her face. 1t
was Fan who spanked baby up
the front step an hour later, and
Mary who hung a number of sus-
picious-looking garments on the
little clotheslne stretched across
the back porch. Bill snores so
loudly his wife wants a divorce,
John -spits on the front porch and
Frank eats with his knife in the
presence of company. Where there
was poetry 1t has vanished; where
there was rapture are now the dull
contentments of the commonplace
or. the daily rebellions against rou-
| tine. Faces once glorified hold only
suggestion of the imminent yawn:
eyes that once fathomed the great
and hidden meanings of life, see
only its dull duties and unending
monotonies-my is no more
and the hours have taken leaden
wings.
But for the laugh of the child !
beholding the rose flame of a new |
dawn or its murmur or looking into
the depths of the star-hung and |
) tremulous night. recreating lost
illusion, 1t were unbearable. Yet
here comes again our sweet Mis-
tress June with ancient witcheries.
and over the hills and far away to
the old. sweet music the piper plays
moves the eager and echanted pa
geant. Life is liar of rose wine
set high in the air and the petals
crushed under the feet OF Swiftly
ing yesterdays give forth no per-
fume. All! Whittier go they and
why do they never return? What
cruel trick is this. what stupid phys
Biological fact that cheats life and
N,bs heaven?
This morning out in the leafy
depths OF the town arose the glad
love note of robin to his mate. II
Il : -