Poems (Odom)/A Wife's Appeal
A WIFE'S APPEAL.
My darling, come to me once more, And lay my head upon your breast,But let me feel your loving arms About me, as they have been pressed.Alone at midnight here I lie In wakeful, agonizing pain;My heart is breaking with the thought That we may never meet again.
O God! my very soul to-night Is steeped in tears of bitter woe,My spirit yearns for all the ties That bound us in the long-ago.In memory of the sweet dead boy, Whose baby heart was all your own,My husband, do not cast aside The purest love your life has known.
For Maggie's sake, whose sunbright hair Lies curled upon her cold sweet brow, Whose bright blue eyes, so like to yours, Sleep in eternal silence now;For sorrows that we both have known, For burdens that we both must bear,Oh! let me lean upon your heart, And find my sweetest comfort there.
And by the holy sacred dust That slumbers in three little graves,Can we not lay all coldness down Beneath the flow of peaceful waves?Then by that last dear living tie— The boy who slumbers at my side,—O darling! to have kept your love I would most willingly have died.
Give me again the tender care I prize so fondly, madly still;But one sweet word to soothe my heart, Then take my whole soul if you will.My God! crush back the bitter.thought! Say—must I claim your love no more?My darling, then I can but die— And dying, I must still adore.