Page:Sentimental reciter.pdf/4

 And in the winter there was no fireside

So cheerful as their own. But other days

And other fortunes came—an evil power!

They bore against it cheerfully, and hoped

For better times, but ruin came at last;

And the old soldier left his own dear home,

And left it for a prison. ’Twas in June,

One of June’s brightest days—the bee, the bird,

The butterfly, were on their brightest wings;

The fruits had their first tinge of summer light;

The sunny sky, the very leaves seemed glad,

And the old man look’d back upon his cottage

And wept aloud:—they hurried him away,

And the dear child that would not leave his side.

They led him from the sight of the blue heaven

And the green trees, into a low, dark cell,

The windows shutting out the blessed sun

With iron grating; and for the first time

He threw him on his bed, and could not hear

His Isabel’s “good night!” But the next morn

She was the earliest at the prison gate,

The last on whom it closed; and her sweet voice,

And sweeter smile, made him forget to pine.

She brought him every morning fresh wild flowers,

But every morning could he see her cheek

Grow paler and more pale, and her low tones

Get fainter and more faint, and a cold dew

Was on the hand he held. One day he saw

The sun shine through the grating of his cell,

Yet Isabel came not; at every sound

His heart-beat took away his breath, yet still

She came not near him. But one sad day

He mark’d the dull street through the iron bars

That shut him from the world;—at length he saw

A coffin carried carelessly along,

And he grew desperate—he forced the bars;

And he stood on the street, free and alone!

He had no aim, no wish for liberty—

He only felt one want, to see the corpse

That had no mourners. When they set it down,

Or e’er ’twas lower'd into the new dug grave,

A rush of passion came upon his soul,

And he tore off the lid, and saw the face

Of Isabel, and knew he had no child 1

He lay down by the coffin quietly—

His heart was broken! L.E.L.