Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/33

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FIRE PROOF.
27

Till blots and blanks and errors
The world beyond makes right?

So shut your eyes, my darling;
My heart is beating true,
But what your soul is thinking
I'll guess the white lids through;

And so escape the knowing
There lies a subtle mist
Across the eyes wide open
My loving lips have kissed.




FIRE-PROOF.


THERE'S a house burned down!
Only, gaunt and black,
Stands the smoky shaft
Of the chimney-stack;
And the fireplace small,
Where we sat together,
Cannot hide us now
From the wind and weather.
But the twilight talk
And the childish chat
By yon blistered hearth,—
What can burn up that?

All the tender dreams
Over hands entwined;