The poetical works of Lucy Larcom

Over a crumpled paper in her hand
Old Madeline wept.
Dimly the candle flickered on the stand;
Up the dark chimney flared a smouldering brand;
The whole house slept.

And Madeline's care had made that sleeping sweet;
For all day long
She pattered to and fro with light, quick feet;
And while her broom made nook and corner neat,
She hummed a song:

A broken singing, 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 a 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 glee or catch;

No matter what,—the children gathered near,
For all and each:—
Pathos of moaning winds through branches sere,
Mirth as of waves that break in sunset clear
On some lone beach.

To-night she sat in silence. Every night,
For years and years,
Here had she cowered by the late candle-light
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.
Fallen in the march, pursuing foes that fled,
Somewhere beside the road he lay, they said;
His grave none knew.

The tattered newspaper spread out to her
A picture wide:
Among vast alien hills the battle's stir;
A death-bed where none came to minister
To him who died;

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A spot of green beside a mountain road,
By warm winds kissed,
Where strange large roses opened hearts that glowed,
And over him their blood-red petals strewed
Whom love had missed.

For sweet maid Madeline had never guessed
Ralph cared for her
Save as a 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,
Wondering what happier girl his heart would win.
She drowned her vexing dreams in work-day din;
The war he sought.

And after he had fallen, a comrade came,
And told her how
Upon the battle-eve he breathed her name;
Then Madeline said, “None else my hand shall claim,”
And kept her vow.

With her no lightest wooing ever sped:
No man might press
A soothing hand upon her weary head,
Or whisper comfort to the heart that bled
With loneliness.

For Madeline said, “Ralph surely waits for me
Beyond Death's gate;
And I might miss him through eternity,
By joining fates with one less loved than he:
I too can wait.

“I could not bear another lover's kiss,
Because I 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,
Hushing its moan,
That yet into her merriest singing strayed;
While all declared, “A cheerfuller 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 kindliness and mirth;
Her life was whole:

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Whole, though it seemed a fragment, rent apart
From its true end.
Downward from deathless clinging reached her heart,
Readier to comfort for its hidden smart;
To all a friend.

None saw her tears save God and her lost love:
Surely that dew
Kept memory blossoming fresh in fields above;
Against death's bars he must have felt the dove
That fluttering flew.

So lived she faithful, an unwedded 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.

University of Virginia Library

OLD MADELINE.