[45]
A SOLDIER of the rebels lay dying in the field;
A brave but sturdy fighter, he could fall but could not yield.
But a comrade stood beside him while his life-blood trickled fast,
And bent, with pitying glances, to wrap him in my last,
Seeking his country’s glory, e’en in the cannon’s mouth.
Though in the midst of bloodshed, my first stood for the South.
The dying soldier faltered as he took his comrade’s hand,
Saying, “Make my whole, my brother, it is my last command.”
[46]
HOPING my first kind Heaven will send her,
The suppliant prays on bended knee.
Like Little Billee, “young and tender,”
We all desire my last shall be.
So that she might become my whole
God breathed in Eve a living soul.
[47]
DOROTHY Dauber sat serene,
Painting my total on a screen,
When a little mouse went scampering o’er
Dorothy Dauber’s yellow floor.
Dorothy, with a piercing cry,
Clambered up on a table high;
My first went madly rushing past
Waving vigorously my last.
Such a commotion in the house,
And all on account of a little mouse.