Читать книгу The Old Soldier's Story: Poems and Prose Sketches - Riley James Whitcomb - Страница 6

Louella Wainie! where are you?

Do you not hear me as I cry?

Dusk is falling; I feel the dew;

And the dark will be here by and by:

I hear no thing but the owl's hoo-hoo!

Louella Wainie! where are you?

Hand in hand to the pasture bars

We came loitering, Lou and I,

Long ere the fireflies coaxed the stars

Out of their hiding-place on high.

O how sadly the cattle moo!

Louella Wainie! where are you?

Laughingly we parted here —

"I will go this way," said she,

"And you will go that way, my dear" —

Kissing her dainty hand at me —

And the hazels hid her from my view.

Louella Wainie! where are you?

Is there ever a sadder thing

Than to stand on the farther brink

Of twilight, hearing the marsh-frogs sing?

Nothing could sadder be, I think!

And ah! how the night-fog chills one through.

Louella Wainie! where are you?

Water-lilies and oozy leaves —

Lazy bubbles that bulge and stare

Up at the moon through the gloom it weaves

Out of the willows waving there!

Is it despair I am wading through?

Louella Wainie! where are you?

Louella Wainie, listen to me,

Listen, and send me some reply,

For so will I call unceasingly

Till death shall answer me by and by —

Answer, and help me to find you too!

Louella Wainie! where are you?