The Soldier's Wife

When she was a girl, her dreams were bold,
As bold as her fine, free gaze;
And every gift of grace and mind,
Was hers in her younger days.

When she was a girl, a golden girl,
With a soul as fine as fire,
She could outshine the brightest jewel
That a rich man's love might buy her.

Yes, hers could have been the glittering path
Through a careless, care-free life,
But she fell in love with a soldier,
So she became a soldier's wife.

Away from the home of her childhood,
She marched at her husband's side,
For she chose a wide and winding road
When she became a soldier's bride.

And sometimes the road was a hard one,
So different from the one she had planned;
And sometimes she had wept for the home she had left
As she lay in a foreign land.

And sometimes her steps would grow weary
As she followed the drum and fife;
But she set about making the world her home,
Because she was a soldier's wife.

She learned to build a hearth for them
Wherever her man was sent,
And she knelt to plant a garden
Every time he pitched their tent.

Yes, she'd always plant a garden,
Though she never saw it grow,
For she knew before the flowers came
That she would have to go.

But, she left each garden gladly,
Though it cut her like a knife,
For she hoped it might bring comfort
To another soldier's wife.

To the hardships in her married life,
She brought one simple truth;
A promise that was spoken
In the ancient words of Ruth:

Wherever you go, I will go,
Wherever you lodge, I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people,
And your God shall be my God.

I'll share your joys and sorrows,
As we make our way through life,
For I'm proud to love a soldier,
And to be a soldier's wife.

She bore the weight of worrying
What fate might hold in store;
And the wordless fear of waiting,
When her soldier went to war;

And the nights that she spent fearing
That her fearing was in vain;
And the pain of wanting someone
She might never hold again.

But, she bore his children gladly,
Through uncertainty and strife,
And they never heard her crying,
For she was a soldier's wife.

She raised a soldier's family
with faith her love had taught her;
And she gave the pride she had inside
To her son and to her daughter.

And she taught them to love freedom,
And to know what it was worth,
As they helped her plant her gardens
In the far corners of the Earth.

And she never wished for better
Than the road she marched through life,
Because she was as much a soldier,
As she was a soldier's wife.

~Author Unknown