MARJORIE, with the waiting face, Marjorie, with the pale brown hair, She sits and sews in the silent place, She counts the steps on the outer stair. Two, three, four -- they pass her door, The patient face droops low again, Still it is as it was before -- Oh! will he come indeed no more, And are her prayers all prayed in vain? Through the warm and the winter night, Marjorie, with the wistful eyes, She keeps her lonely lamp alight Until the stars are dim in the skies. Through the gray and the shining day Her pallid fingers, swift and slim, Set their stitches, nor one astray, Though her heart it is far away, Over the summer seas with him. Over the distant summer seas Marjorie's yearning fancies fly; She feels the kiss of the island breeze, She sees the blue of the tropic sky. Does she know, as they come and go, Those waves that lap the island shore, That under their ceaseless ebb and flow Golden locks float to and fro, -- Tangled locks she will comb no more? Many a hopeless hope she keeps, Marjorie with the aching heart; Sometimes she smiles, and sometimes she weeps, At thoughts that all unbidden start. I can see what the end will be: Some day when the Master sends for her, A voice she knows will say joyfully, "God is waiting for Marjorie," And her lover will be his messenger. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WITH WHOM IS NO VARIABLENESS, NEITHER SHADOW OF TURNING' by ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 40 by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN THAT GENERAL UTILITY RAG, BY OUR OWN IRVING BERLIN by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH EMBLEMS OF LOVE: 18. HARD TO BE PLEASED by PHILIP AYRES AN EPILOGUE TO THE STEALING OF DIONYSOS: IACHOS SPEAKING by GORDON BOTTOMLEY KATE'S MOTHER by ROBERT SEYMOUR BRIDGES |