And my heart felt sad and humbled;
For I knew the thoughts, the hopes,
The earnest wish, the brilliant tropes
Those letters hasten’d to reveal
Were symboll’d by the ink and seal.
I opened one—my pulse grew quicker,
My eyelid fell, my breath came thicker;
I traced its lines, close, firm, and clear,
Telling how deeply, fondly dear,
The being was for whose loved sake
That letter came, with such a cake.
It gave report of Pincher’s health,
It told of Muff’s increase of wealth
In five young rabbits, all milk-white,
That Gyp and Dobbin were “all right,”
That Midsummer would quickly come,
And then for holidays and home.
I gave a gasp, half sob, half sigh,
While Memory’s flood-wave filled my eye,
And folded from my misty gaze
My mother and my schoolgirl days.
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I look’d upon another hand,
Bold, free, and dashing in its form;
And then I saw the lee-shore strand,
And heard the passion of the storm
That tore the right arm from its hold,
And flung it nerveless, still and cold,
Upon the rocks, no more to send
Its tidings full of life and joy,
And cheer his childhood’s playmate-friend
With letters from the sailor boy.
Another and another scroll
I opened—one by one I read:
I gazed as they who may unrol
A shroud to look upon the dead.
Love, with its ardent vows, was there,
Friendship, that promised to be true,
Words that like summer light and air
Fill’d my heart’s world with gold and blue.
Where was the lover? Where the friend?
The bond that was to know no end?
Where was the promise and the vow?
Alas, a yawning gulf of gloom,
Bridged only by the dark grey tomb,
Had open’d wide ’twixt then and now.
A muffled sound seem’d breathing round,
A mingled tone of merry chime
And funeral knells, but all the bells
Gave chorus of the theme which tells
Sad tales of “Once upon a time.”
Come, I will write my epitaph
In letters shadowy and dim,
And though the young strong man may laugh,
’Twill shortly serve as well for him.
Just heap the clay where frost and sun
May help the ivy leaf to climb,
And all I’ve said, and all I’ve done,
