James Riley - The Old Soldier's Story - Poems and Prose Sketches

I have prayed, O Lelloine, but Heaven will not hear me,
I can not gain one sign from Him who leads you by the hand;
And O it seems that ne'er again His mercy will come near me —
That He will never see my need, nor ever understand.

Won't you listen, Lelloine? – just a little leaning
O'er the walls of Paradise – lean and hear my prayer,
And interpret death to Him in all its awful meaning,
And tell Him you are lonely without your mother there.

Whispering to themselves apart,
They who knew her 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.

Beautiful? Ah! brush the dust
From Raphael's fairest face,
And restore it, as it must
First have smiled back from its place
On his easel as he leant
Wrapt in awe and wonderment!

Why, to kiss the very hem
Of the mourning-weeds she wore,
Like the winds that rustled them,
I had gone the round world o'er;
And to touch her hand I swear
All things dareless I would dare!

But unto themselves apart,
Whispering, they 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.

So I mutely turned away,
Turned with sorrow and despair,
Yearning still from day to day
For that woman dying there,
Till at last, by longing led,
I 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! 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