Poems (Chitwood)/Why did I Weep when Johnny Died?

by Mary Louisa Chitwood

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 bear
The 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 life
Is that when shrieks the bleeding heart,
 "I am a drunkard's wife!"