"VIA SOLITARIA"

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 52, 29 August 1925, Page 17

"VIA SOLITARIA"

Alone I walk the peopled city, Where each seems happy with his own; 0 friends, I ask not for your pity— I walk alone.

No more for me yon lake rejoices, Though moved by loving airs of June; 0 birds, your sweet and piping voices Are out of tune.

In vain for me the elm tree arches Its plumes in maiiy a feathery spray, In vain the evening's starry marches And sunlit ray.

In vain your beauty, summer flowers, Ye cannot great these cordial eyes; They gaze on other fields tliae ours— On other skies.

The gold is rifled from the coffer, The blade is stolen from the sheath; Life has but one more boon to offer, And that is death.

Yet well I know the voice of duty, And, therefore, life and health must

crave— Though sho who gave the -world its beauty Is in her grave-.

I live, 0 lost one! for the living Who drew their earliest life irona tbee, And wait until, with glad thankssivinc shall be free. •

For life to me is as a station Wherein apart a. traveller stands One absent long from home and nation JLn other lands.

And I. as lie who stands and listens, Amid the twilight's chill and gloom, To hear approaching in the distance Tho train for home.

For death shall bring another mating, Beyond the shadows of tho tomb, On yonder shore a bride is waiting Until I come.

In yonder fields are children playing; And there—o vision of delight!— I see the child and mother straying In robes of white.

Thon, then, the longing heart that breakest, Stealing the treasures one. by one, I'll call Thc<>. blessed when thou makest The' parted one.

—Dr. 0. M. ConoTor, Madison, Wisconsin.

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