Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/102

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HE spring wind crept through the city car, Threading the crowded thoroughfare, Lifting in frolic the floating curl From the snowy throat of the laughing girl; Turning the leaf of a reader's book, Chasing a straw to the farthest nook; Out at a window, in at the door, Like a welcome guest who had been before.

It swayed the fold of the mourner's veil, Lifting a lock from her forehead pale, With a tender touch for the thread of gray That had whitened there since a vanished May; It dried a tear on her pallid cheek, That told as plain as a tear could speak, Without the gaze of the sombre eyes, Of a child gone on into Paradise.

Evermore turning her glances sad To the boyish form of a sailor-lad, Her vis-á-vis, who, in day-dreams sweet, Saw not the scenes of the busy street; She watched the light of his flashing eye, As blue as the tint of the summer sky; "Some mother's darling,"; she said—"not mine; 'Thy will be done', O Father! thine!";

Patient the childless mother sat, Watching the ribbon upon his hat,