Poems (Chitwood)/Why did I Weep when Johnny Died?
WHY DID I WEEP WHEN JOHNNY DIED?
Why did I weep when Johnny died? I scarcely, scarcely know;They laid him by the river side, In shroud as white as snow.Now that the waves of agony Have partly rolled away,Why I did weep when Johnny died, I scarcely know to-day.
I had none else to love me, none; For his sake I could bearThe blow and taunting word from one Whose life I have to share.He was no drunkard in the day, The bright day we were wed,—Alas! that I should live to say, "I would that I were dead."
Yet life, till little Johnny died, Was not a barren thing,—'Twas like the star-beam on the tide, The blossom in the spring.But often for a crust of bread That gentle prattler cried,—'Tis strange, yes, very strange to think I wept when Johnny died.
He 's living in the Father's house, On that far distant shore,Where he will never feel the cold, Or hunger any more.I saw him standing by my bed, In robe of spotless white;I saw him in my fever dreams, Sweet smiling, yester-night.
'Tis sad to see a little mound Shine with a mother's tears;And sad the closing of the wound Slow healing thro' the years, But, oh! the saddest, bitterest hour That darkens o'er a lifeIs that when shrieks the bleeding heart, "I am a drunkard's wife!"