TILL I COME BACK AGAIN.
[A widow of seventy years died in Portsmouth some time ago, the truth of whose life was stranger than any fiction. At the age of fifteen she married the choice of her heart, a young sea captain, and after a brief and happy honeymoon he left her for a foreign voyage. But his ship was never heard from, and doubtless foundered at sea, with all on board. The young husband, as he was dressing for sea on the morning he left home, playfully threw a pair of stockings over his head, to test some sailor’s charm or other, and they chanced to land on the top of a canopy bedstead he remarking, “Sarah, let them stay there till I come back.” The many and many a long year they have lain, but alas! he never returned. But neither love, nor hopes, nor expectations ever died out in her faithful heart during all the years of her lonely pilgrimage. To the last, whenever a door opened, or a step was heard approaching, she turned to see if it might not be he whom she mourned and sought. But he never came back to her—let us hope and trust that she has gone to him. But by her desire she was buried in her wedding dress, with white gloves and wedding ring.]—Home Paper.
They rested on a canopy above the bridal bed,
And whilst a sunny laugh played through affection’s pearly rain,
He said, “Oh, let them stay there, dear, till I come again.”
And mournfully he waved adieu unto his weeping bride;
Until the crimson glinting in the West began to wane,
She watched the white speck on the sea, and wished it back again.
