EDWIN AND MARY.
When the proud British foe were invading our soil,
And pressing our sons from their freedom to toil;
Young Edwin he bid his fair Mary adieu,
And at parting he said "his love should be true."
Now this young hero undaunted and brave,
Put on his tarpaulin to fight on the wave;
He faced the rude billows where the cannons did roar,
To fight for his country and his own native shore.
Weeks and months rolled away, also year after year,
Yet Mary no tidings of Edwin could hear;
She asked every wind as they gently passed by,
They brought her no tidings but fled with a sigh.
To add to her sorrows her parents both died.
Which left her abandoned on life's floating tide;
The changes of fortune soon caused her to roam,
From the scenes of her youth and her juvenile home.
But soon the war ended and peace smiled again,
Young Edwin returned crowned with fortune and fame;
He landed near the cottage on Utson's smooth stream,
Where the streams are all gay and the banks dressed in green.
The thought of his Mary then rushed in his mind,
He says "I will go and my Mary I'll find,"
He sought her in vain tho' he sought her with care,
For long had she wandered and none could tell where.
One day on the banks of the stream as he stray'd,
Where the wild songsters sung and the wild zephyrs play'd
As the sun was declining the evening grew near,
The voice of his Mary enchanted his ear.
He saw her reclined in the shade of a tree,
Where the wild branches swang [sic] at the sigh of the breeze;
Her cheek had grown pale, tho' she was as fair as the sun,
And these were the accents that fell from her tongue.
"O pity kind heaven, and sooth my sad heart
For why were I dombed [sic] from my Edwin to part;
Alas when he sailed from his own native shore,
He fixed my sad doom to behold him no more.
How oft hand in hand have I wandered with thee,
And so playfully sat myself down on his knee;
And beneath the the [sic] tall shadows of yonder green pine,
I have smoothed down his hair with those fingers of mine.
How oft on the banks of the stream have we strayed,
When the heavens recorded the vows that he made;
But now he has gone never more to return,
And I a poor wanderer am left here to mourn.
I am afraid he is drowned in the waters dark wave,
Where thousands have met with a watery grave;
Or else he has died in some foreign land,
Where his death has been soothed by no true lover's hand.
I wish he was toomed [sic] in some grave-yard near home,
To that silent place I would this moment roam;
And the finest of laurels I would twine 'round his bier,
I would moisten his clay with affections [sic] warm tear."
Now Edwin no longer his feelings could command,
He rushed from his ambush and seized her fair hand:
Crying "Mary, Oh, Mary, the joy of my heart;
Neither in life nor in death evermore will we part."
W. J. SCHMIDT, 118 Fayette St. cor. of Park, [sic]
