Your Letter, Lady, Came Too Late
The following beautiful and touching lines were written during the Civil War by an officer of the Confederate army, at the time a prisoner on Johnson Island. A young Georgian, when the war broke out, was engaged to be married to the most beautiful and brilliant belle of Savannah, but died in captivity. While he lay dead, a letter came from this young lady to her late lover. It was a cruel, cold, heartless letter, altogether different in tone and in manner from any she ever had written to him. She spoke of brilliant balls she had lately dealt with, unconcealed rapture upon the innumerable perfections of a certain colonel of General Wheeler’s staff—of his manly form, his exquisite dancing, his marvelous conversational powers—closing with these chilling words: “Respectfully, Virginia.” Hitherto she had ended her letters with: “Your own devoted and faithful Virginia.” This letter was received at the prison a few hours after the death of him to whom it was addressed, and replied to by his comrade as follows:
By Colonel W. S. Hawkins
Your letter, Lady, came too late,
For Heaven had claimed its own.
Ah, sudden change from prison bars,
Unto the great white throne.
And yet I think that he would have
To live his disdain.
Could he have read the careless words
Which you have sent in vain.
So full of patience did he wait
Through many weary an hour.
That o’er his simple soldier face,
Not even death had power;
And you, did others whisper low,
Their homage in your ears.
And through their shadowy tongue,
His spirit had appeared.
I would that you were by me now
To draw the sheets aside,
And to see how pure the look he wore,
The moment that he died.
That sorrow that you gave him
Has left its weary trace,
Ah, ’twas the shadow of the cross
Upon his pallid face.
“Her love,” he said, “could change for me
The cold into the spring,”
Ah, trust the fickle maiden’s love
Thou art a bitter thing.
For when these valley’s bright, in May
Once more with blossoms wave,
The northern violets shall blow
Above his humble grave.
Your dole of scanty words had been
One more pang to bear,
For who kissed until the last
Your tresses of golden hair?
I did not put it where he said
For when the angels come,
I would not let them find the sign
Of falsehood in the tomb.
I see you better, and I know
The wiles that you have wrought,
To win that noble heart of his,
And gained it—cruel thought.
What lavish wealth some men sometimes give
For what is worthless all,
What manly bosoms beat for them
Is follies falsest thrall.
You shall not pity him, for now
His sorrows have an end,
Yet, would that you could stand with me
Beside your fallen friend.
And I forgive you for his sake,
As he—if it be given—
May be even pleading grace for you
Before the Court of Heaven.
Tonight the cold winds whistle by,
As I my vigil keep,
Within the death house of the prison,
Where few mourners come to weep;
A rude plank coffin hold his form,
Yet death exalts his face,
And I would rather see him thus,
Than clasped in your embrace.
Tonight your home may shine with lights
And ring with merry songs,
And you be smiling as though your soul
Ha done no deathly wrong.
Your hands so fair, none would think
Had penned these words of pain,
Your skin so white, would God, your heart
Were half so free from stain.
I’d rather be my comrade dead
Than you in life supreme;
For you’re the sinner’s walking dread
And in the Martyr’s dreams.
Whom serve we in this, we serve
In that which is to come,
He chose his way, you yours, let God
Pronounce the fighting done.
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