Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/329

 A BACHELOR S BRIDE. 323

Then Kate and Jo, and Sue and Rose ;

Now for some names unknown Anita, Eleanor, Fanchette,

And Gretchen by the Rhone.

Ah ! here comes Margie : &quot; Little friend,

I m looking for my wife, The woman I have missed somewhere,

And so lived half a life.&quot;

See ! now I draw the magic slip, And read it, &quot;Gretchen !&quot; Where

Has Margie gone ? Why did she blush Up to her very forehead fair,

As though it had been her own name ?

Stop ! &quot; Gretchen &quot; is her own In accents of the &quot; Faderland &quot;

The same. I might have known

That fact at first. O childish friend !

Have I been mad or blind, That all at once I see the truth,

And wake from dreams, to find

The dearest girl in all the world

Treading life s walk with me? Ah ! after all these blinded years,

Like him once healed I see.

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