It was September, forty-three—

Little less than a year, you see—

When the woman who waited thought she heard

The clatter of foot-beats that she knew

On the Walla Walla again. "What word

From Whitman?" Whitman himself! And see!

What do her glad eyes look upon?

The first of two hundred wagons rolls

Into the valley before her. He

Who, a year ago, had left her side,