  I LOVED him so; his voice had grown Into my heart, and now to hear The pretty song he had sung so long Die on the lips to me so dear! He a child with golden curls, And I with head as white as snow— I knelt down there and made this pray’r: “God, let me be the first to go!” How often I recall it now: My darling tossing on his bed, I sitting there in mute despair, Smoothing the curls that crowned his head. They did not speak to me of death— A feeling here had told me so; What could I say or do but pray That I might be the first to go? Yet, thinking of him standing there Out yonder as the years go by, Waiting for me to come, I see ’Twas better he should wait, not I. For when I walk the vale of death, Above the wail of Jordan’s flow Shall rise a song that shall make me strong— The call of the child that was first to go. |
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