Poems (Odom)/Waiting
For works with similar titles, see Waiting.
WAITING.
Alone—still alone—all the gloomy day through,Wearily waiting and watching for you, Counting the hours that drearily go Back to the past with their burden of woe.Hushing the passionate wail of my heart,Crushing the tears that would bitterly start, Back to their fountain with resolute will, Striving to love you and trust in you still.
The sun has gone down in the gold-tinted west,The last bird has folded his wing in his rest, The moon's silver crescent is swinging on high, The stars have come out one by one in the sky,Yet still I am waiting and watching for you,With spirit unswerving, unchanging, and true; Though lonely and darkly the hours have passed, I fain would adore you and trust to the last.
What rival can win you away from your home,Where deepest devotion would woo you to come! The soft voice of pleasure and luxury's wile Methinks would grow pale in one welcoming smile,From the eyes of our boy, as he springs to your breast,His cheek against yours so caressingly pressed, His lips raining kisses on yours as they met them,— Two hearts here to worship you if you would let them.
Oh! force not the love that is thrillingly sweetTo droop like a floweret and fade at your feet; Affection can hold it in beauty erect, 'T will die if 't is pressed by the hand of neglect.Then come to the heart that is wretched and lonely,Whose tenderest pulse beats for you, and you only; I am weary, so weary of waiting alone, My spirit is yearning to welcome your own.
Think, darling, of all the bright years of my life,Those first loving years when you cherished your wife,— The pleasures and sorrows we have known together,— The two little graves lying close to each other,— The bright rosy boy, who is last of the threeSweet children, that God gave to you' and to me; And by all the ties of the present and past, Oh! let me still love you and trust to the last.