FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   >>  
t of bird to a rarer clime Many a youth whose death caused the blight Of tender hearts in that long, sad time. Nay, but this is no hour for sorrow; They died at their duty, shall we repine? Let us gaze hopefully on to the morrow Praying that our lives thus shall shine. Ring out your bugles, sound out your cheers! Man has been God-like so may we be. Give cheering thanks, there dry up those tears, Widowed and orphaned, the country is free! Wreathes of lillies and immortelles, Scattered upon each silent mound, Voices in loving remembrance swell, Chanting to heaven the solemn sound, Glad skies above, and glad earth beneath, And grateful hearts who silently Gather earth's flowers, and tenderly wreath Woman's sweet token of fragility. AT EVENTIDE. All day had she watched and waited for his coming, and still her strained ears caught no sounds of the footsteps she loved and longed to hear. All day while the great sun panted on his way around the brazen skies; all day while the busy world throbbed its mighty engines of labor, nor witted of the breaking hearts in its midst. And now when the eve had come, and the sun sank slowly to rest, casting his red rays over the earth he loved, and bidding tired nature a gentle radiant good-night, she still watched and waited. Waited while the young moon shone silvery in the crimson flush of the eastern sky, while the one bright star trembled as he strove to near his love; waited while the hum of soul-wearing traffic died in the distant streets, and the merry voices of happy children floated to her ears. And still he came not. What kept him from her side? Had he learned the cold lesson of self-control, or found one other thing more potent than love? Had some cruel chain of circumstances forced him to disobey her bidding--or--did he love another? But no, she smiles triumphantly, he could not having known and loved her. Sitting in the deep imbrasure of the window through which the distant wave sounds of city life floated to her, the pages of her life seemed to turn back, and she read the almost forgotten tale of long ago, the story of their love. In those days his wish had been her law; his smile her sun; his frown her wretchedness. Within his arms, earth seemed a far-away dream of empty nothingness, and when his lips touched and clung to hers, sweet with the perfume of the South they floated away into a Paradise of enfolding space,
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   >>  



Top keywords:

waited

 

floated

 
hearts
 

bidding

 

watched

 

distant

 

sounds

 

children

 

radiant

 
learned

voices

 
gentle
 
Waited
 
bright
 
trembled
 

strove

 

wearing

 

traffic

 

crimson

 

silvery


streets

 

nature

 

eastern

 

circumstances

 

Within

 

wretchedness

 

forgotten

 

perfume

 
Paradise
 

enfolding


nothingness

 

touched

 

disobey

 

forced

 
potent
 
lesson
 

control

 
window
 
imbrasure
 

Sitting


smiles
 
triumphantly
 

brazen

 

cheers

 

bugles

 

country

 

orphaned

 

Wreathes

 

immortelles

 

lillies