Old Bess Poem by Francis Duggan

Goodbye and may God be with you dear old Bess to old John did say
As she kissed him on his cold thin lips his end moments away
He had lapsed into unconciousness and in seconds he had gone
From the World of the living where living life goes on.

For fifty years together they had lived as man and wife
Together they had their good days and their bad days and their ups and downs in life
Their only child a girl stillborn for them a tragic day
But time is a great healer though it makes us old and gray.

She had cared for him through his sufferings he had been unwell for two years
She had grieved that he would not get well and for him no more tears
The only man she had ever loved with fondness she recall
But the journey through life comes to an end one day for one and all.

Old Bess in her mid seventies looks younger by ten years or more
On Saturdays I see her shopping at the corner grocery store
A warm hearted person she always smiles and says hello
She is one of those nice people that I feel privileged to know.

In the peaceful cemetery beside the hill at rest old John now lay
At life's journey's end he had suffered much the end for some that way
And Bess she often brings him flowers and at his gravesite pray
In hope that in the other World they will meet again one day.