James Berry Bensel (1856–1886)

IN the white sweetness of her dimpled chin

The pink points of her perfumed fingers press,

And ’round her tremulous mouth’s loveliness

The tears and smiles a sudden strife begin:

First one and then the other seems to win:

And o’er her drooping eyes a golden tress

Falls down to hide what else they might confess

Their blue-veined lids are striving to shut in.

The yellow pearls that bind her throat about

With her pale bosom’s throbbing rise or fall:

The while her thoughts like carrier-doves have fled

To that far land where armies clash and shout,

And where, beyond love’s reach, a soldier tall

With staring eyes and broken sword lies dead.