THE LITTLE BROWN CURL.
A quaint old box with a lid of blue,
All faded and worn with age;
A soft little curl of a brownish hue,
A yellow and half-written page.
The letters, with never a pause nor dot,
In a school-boy's hand are cast;
The lines and the curl I may hold to-day,
But the love of the boy is past.
It faded away with our childish dreams,
Died out like the morning mist,
And I look with a smile on the silken curl
That once I had tenderly kissed.
One night in the summer—so long ago—
We played by the parlor door,
And the moonlight fell, like a silver veil,
Spreading itself on the floor.
And the children ran on the graveled walk
At play in their noisy glee;
But the maddest, merriest fun just then
Was nothing to John and me.
For he was a stately boy of twelve,
And I was not quite eleven—
We thought as we sat by the parlor door
We had found the gate to heaven.
That night when I lay on my snowy bed,
Like many a foolish girl,
I kissed and held to my little heart
This letter and silken curl.
I slept and dreamed of the time when I
Should wake to a fairy life;
And sleeping, blushed, when I thought that John
Had called me his little wife.
I have loved since then with a woman's heart,
Have known all a woman's bliss,
But never a dream of the after life
Was ever so sweet as this.
The years went by with their silver feet,
And often I laughed with John
At the vows we made by the parlor door
When the moon and stars looked on.
Ah? boyish vows were broken and lost,
And a girl's first dream will end,
But I dearly loved his beautiful wife,
While he was my husband's friend.
When at last I went to my childhood's home
Far over the bounding wave,
I missed my friend, for the violets grew
And blossomed over his grave.
To-day as I opened the old blue box,
And looked on this soft brown curl,
And read of the love John left for me
When I was a little girl,
There came to my heart a throb of pain,
And my eyes grew moist with tears,
For the childish love and the dear, dear friend,
And the long-lost buried years.