The Girl From Over “There”

By Budd L. McKillips

A pistol shot, a darting pain

Like red-hot needles through her brain,

And ere the smoke cleared from the room

Another soul groped through the gloom.

With fleeting glance the policemen came

Looked through her purse, took down her name;

Reporters never wondered why

Or reasoned how she came to die.

In silent morgue, somber and drab—

With folded hands, on sheeted slab—

No mourners crowded ’round her bier

To say a prayer or shed a tear.

Yet scarce a week before and she

Had smiled and looked on life with glee

Dreamed dreams of everlasting bliss

And reveled in her lover’s kiss.

His mistress? yes but oft he’d said

He loved her madly, soon they’d wed;

Love-blind she hung on every word

While ugly rumors went unheard.

Then came the day which like a thief

Stole joy and filled her heart with grief;

Cursed by the man she called her own,

She woke to find her dreams had flown.

Tired of his toy he now defamed

And thrust her from him, unashamed,

To find refuge among her kind;

Then went to meet his latest find.

Black as the night from pole to pole

The world seemed to her aching soul;

With heart bowed down and racked with pain

She sent a bullet through her brain.

In restaurant where bright lights shine

A man laughs loud, made gay with wine

He beams on one with youth abloom—

The fairest creature in the room.

The violins wail and cymbals clash,

The dancers whirl and diamonds flash;

His heart is light and free of care

As tambos beat and trombones blare.

Forgotten is the long ago,

The whispered love-words, soft and low

Each word a lie, each kiss a snare

For her long since passed over “there.”

Unnoticed by the merry crowd

A figure enters clad in shroud,

Her ghastly face a lurid glow—

The dead girl’s face of long ago.

The music stops, unseen she flits

To where a laughing couple sits

A choking shriek, a gasp for breath—

A man lies still and stark in death.

A hush falls o’er the crowded room

There comes a breath as from a tomb—

The eyes now set in glassy stare

Had seen the face from over “there.”

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