Unknown Letter #17

Dublin Core

Title

Unknown Letter #17

Subject

Peirce, Jerome
Allie
Jackson, MS

Description

From Jerome to Allie

Creator

Jerome Peirce

Source

Jerome Peirce Collection, National Park Service

Publisher

HIST 428 (Spring 2020), University of Mary Washington

Date

1863-07-??

Contributor

NPS, Civil War Study Group, Josef Rokus (Transcriber)

Rights

For educational purposes with no commercial use. Courtesy of National Park Service, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania NMP, FRSP 16095-16102 (FRSP-00904).

Language

English

Type

Text

Identifier

Unknown Letter #17

Coverage

Jackson, MS

Text Item Type Metadata

Text

LETTER TRANSCRIPTION

ONE WORD WITH THEE.

One word with thee – one sweet yet mournful meeting,
If but to catch again they low sad tone,
And clasp they hand, and feel its warm pulse beating
With love’s delicious throb against my own
If but to catch thine eye and hear thee say
“I will remember thee when far away.”
One word with thee – though not of hope or gladness,
On which to muse when we are far apart;
A whisper – breathed in silence and in sadness –
To leave a hush forever on my heart!
One word – to treasure in my bosom-core,
Whether we meet again, or meet no more.
One word with thee – though it may be to sever
The last sweet link that binds thy soul to mine,
And tear from me thy burning heart forever,
To place another on its shattered shrine!
One word – to treasure in my bosom-core,
Whether we meet again, or meet no more.
One word with thee – one brief yet blissful meeting
To catch thy voice, where last we met alone;
Whose faintest sigh can set this heart to beating
With thoughts and feelings that it dare not own!
One word – O God of bliss, and it can be
That it may be our last? – One word with thee!

THE END.

Transcriber’s Note: The following note is written on the top of the first page in what appears to be
Jerome’s handwriting:
The purple flowers are a field flower and pretty.
Transcriber’s Note: The following note is written on the bottom of the second page in what appears to
be Jerome’s handwriting:
From a vol. [volume] of poems taken from a house at Jackson, Miss., where our line of battle moved.
From “Mrs. Welby’s” Poems, known as “Amelia”.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Note 1: This item consists of the above poem printed on the front and back side of one sheet of paper,
with the above notes. There no indication of the date when or from where this item was mailed. There
is no envelope. However, based on other letters, Jerome was in the Jackson, Mississippi, area in mid-July
of 1863.
Based on the contents of the letter, Jerome apparently sent some field flowers with this letter.
Note 2: Mrs. Amelia Welby, who went by her pen name, Amelia, was born in 1819, died in 1852 and
lived in Kentucky. Her “Poems” collection was published in 1850.

Original Format

Paper/Text

Files

Reference

Jerome Peirce 1863-07-??, Unknown Letter #17, HIST 428 (Spring 2020), University of Mary Washington

Embed

Copy the code below into your web page