IN MEMORY.
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My boyish sweetheart, brave and true; The hero of my earliest song,The idol of my maiden dreams, My soldier-lover, grand and strong;The keeper of my woman's heart, Holding it dearer than his life;The one who crowned me with his love, And blessed me with the name of wife.
From childhood to his manhood's prime My image in his bosom slept;The strings of his impassioned soul No hand but mine has ever swept.No other woman from his eyes The tender glance of love has known;The close heart-pressure of his hand Was mine, and always mine alone.
The love of all the world beside, Scarce missing it, I could have spared,But from my childhood to this hour His heart I never could have shared—Not even with our little ones, Who climbed and clung upon his breast;
