Somebody’s Darling
The first and last stanzas of an exquisite little poem by Miss Marie Lacoste, of Savannah, Georgia, commemorating an incident unfortunately too common in both armies during the sectional conflict, are as follows:
Into a ward of the whitewashed walls,
Where the dead and the dying lay—
Wounded by bayonets, shells, and balls—
Somebody’s darling was borne one day.
Somebody’s darling! So young and so brave,
Wearing still on his pale sweet face,
Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave,
The lingering light of his boyhood’s grace. ·
Somebody’s watching and waiting for him,
Yearning to hold him again to her heart:
There he lies—with the blue eyes dim,
And smiling, childlike lips apart.
Tenderly bury the fair young dead,
Pausing to drop on his grave a tear;
Carve on the wooden slab at his head—
“Somebody’s darling lies buried here.”