Alexander B. McNair

Home On Furlough

Lighter and quicker the yong wife walks;
More and more constant the yong one talks;
Firelight and lamplight there ruddier glow
Over the walls of the home room throw,
All that will pleas him is doing and done;
Tonight the husband and father will come
   Home on furlough.

The lovelist beams from the mother's eye,
As the weeks, and days, and hours go by;
And she thinks of hir darling coming to rest
His weary head on his mothers breast.
The time seems breaf since he nestled there,
Yet now he is coming, with manhood's care. ...