Poems (Chitwood)/I will Try to Love him, Mother

by Mary Louisa Chitwood

I WILL TRY TO LOVE HIM, MOTHER.

I will try to love him, mother; for thy sake I will try—
Repress the falling tear-drops, crush back each rising sigh.
I will learn to mask my feelings, my secret woes to hide,
I will go to meet him, mother; I will be—will be—his bride.

The struggle was most bitter, too deep for tears my woe;
I knew not I could live, and such torture ever know.
I am trembling like an aspen, my cheek is cold and white;
Oh, it seems like years, my mother, long years since yesternight.

I will try to love him, mother; this is all that I can do;
I know his deep devotion, I will strive to prize it too;
I will wed him, I will wed him; thou shalt never say again,
That my poor heart 's ungrateful, that thy pleadings were in vain.

I will try to love him, mother; his home is rich and fair;
I will try to be a sunbeam of peace and brightness there;
I will give his guests a welcome, with sweet and earnest grace;
Oh, none shall read my heart, mother, when looking on my face.

Thou hast often, often told me, that my face was very fair,
My brow like polished marble, 'neath golden waves of hair,
And like a May-time rose-bud, my softly dimpled cheek,
My eyes like moonlit azure—and I loved to hear thee speak;

For I thought I'd be beloved, that was all my poor heart sought,
And my life would not be barren—there was rapture in the thought.
But that blessed hope hath darkened, and my life is all the worse,
And I know, and feel too deeply, that my beauty is a curse.

Thou art selling me for gold, mother! It seems so strange that thou
Canst of his wealth and splendor be calmly speaking now:
I care not for the jewels that may my locks enwreath,
Nor the robes whose fairy lightness so mocks the heart beneath.

They are nothing to me, mother; my thoughts must ever go
To a cottage in a valley, with its mossy roof so low;
The nightingale 's soft singing from the roof-tree's tuft of leaves,
And the robins and the swallows building nests beneath the eaves.

And another memory, mother, must haunt me till I die;
The ghosts of broken troth-plights along my heart will cry;
The elm-tree by the river can not whisper of the vows
Plighted in the quiet starlight, when the dew was on the boughs.

Nay, chide me not so coldly: Oh, let me wildly weep;
No eye may mark my weakness, for the night is dark and deep.
My heart will break with throbbing, if my tears I now restrain;
Oh, the past, the past was bright, mother; it can not come again.

I know that he was poor, mother; no gems could he bestow;
I have no excuse to offer; but I loved, I loved him so,
That a lone and sandy desert, or a cavern deep and dim
As the grave, had been an Eden, if its glooms I shared with him.

I dreamed of him, last night, mother; I went back to the past;
Heaven grant that mocking vision may be the last, the last.
I thought it was flush May-time, and all the dells were bright
With buttercups and daisies, unfolding in the light.

His circling arm about me, the glad blue sky above;
To me life seemed a rapture, with the blessings of his love.
He was speaking of our bridal, with his soft and thrilling tone;
And his deep dark eyes were misty as they locked into mine own.—
Then a serpent coiled about me,—in my dreaming it was so,—
And I loathed the light of morning, for it brought me back to woe.

I will wed, I will wed thy choice, mother; will rend those links apart
That bind me to that dreaming—I will bear a martyred heart.
It will prove my deep affection, that, to gratify thy pride,
I stabbed my own fond heart, mother; that for thy sake I died.