Page 305 - The model orator, or, Young folks' speaker : containing the choicest recitations and readings from the best authors for schools, public entertainments, social gatherings, Sunday schools, etc. : including recitals in prose and verse ...

It's only a month since they started.
W c thought when the regiment went
Tijat long ere the troops were landed
The force of the war would be spent.
And so T had taken courage,
And looked on the bright side first,
Though now and again 1 fretted.
And sometimes feard the worst.

They took Lilt'e Nellie from me,
Took her away for awhile ;
How co a id I hear her prattle,
And watch her eager snide,
A s she counted the: days till daddy
T.Yoald be back from the foreign shore?
How could I (cl 1 my darling
She would see his face no more?

I was left alone with my sorrow—
Alone in my little room,
Where the evening shadows deepened
O
Into the twilight gloom.
I had heard the words they uttered,
T had seen hi1; name on the list;
Rut J sat and peered through the darkness
As a sailor peers through the mist;

I sat like a sleeper doubting
If she dreams or is wide awake,
Till, the truth came on me fiercely,
And I thought that my heart would break.
A s I sat in the deepening g l o a m i n g
The diiid came back again,
And T picked her up and kissed her
While my tears ran down like rain,