The Old Soldier's Story: Poems and Prose Sketches. Riley James Whitcomb

returned to find her – dead?

      "Dead?" – I know that word would tell

      Rhyming there – but in this case

      "Wed" rhymes equally as well

      In the very selfsame place —

      And, in fact, the latter word

      Is the one she had preferred.

      Yet unto themselves apart,

      Whisp'ring they had said of her —

      "Dying of a broken heart —

      Death her only comforter —

      For the man she loved is dead —

      She will follow soon!" they said.

      AFTER THE FROST

      After the frost! O the rose is dead,

      And the weeds lie pied in the garden-bed,

      And the peach tree's shade in the wan sunshine,

      Faint as the veins in these hands of mine,

      Streaks the gray of the orchard wall

      Where the vine rasps loose, and the last leaves fall,

      And the bare boughs writhe, and the winds are lost —

      After the frost – the frost!

      After the frost! O the weary head

      And the hands and the heart are quietéd;

      And the lips we loved are locked at last,

      And kiss not back, though the rain falls fast