He Loved You, He Told Me

Dear Penelope,

You do not know me, but I write to you on behalf of your beloved Clarence. I sat by his bedside many a long day, cherishing a wit and exuberance which his bedridden body could not betray.

He told me many things about his childhood, his adoration of the great poets, his plan to take up the family business, his love of God and country, and his hope that this war would end the strife between the brothers and sisters of our great nation, no matter their creed or the color of their skin.

He told me that he did not know why God had chosen him to suffer so, but he was sure that it must be for good cause, for the betterment of us all.

Of all the tales with which he regaled me, however, those of his love for you, and your incomparable beauty, warmed my heart most.

He went to the front to fight in a cause which you and he agreed worthwhile, and in this I say he did not fight in vain, for the Union he chose to protect, as he told me himself, must in turn protect his child, which you carry.

All his thoughts inevitably turned to you, always back to you and the son or daughter which he as of yet did not know but knew that he loved, and always would.

He loved you, his dear Penelope, or, as he confided with a smile that glowed with the brilliance of the sun in a clear sky, his poppet, a term of endearment he learned from your own British grandmother.

He loved you, he told me, because of the lilting cadence of your high, soft voice.

He loved you, he told me, because of the way the sunlight glistened on your skin as it might sparkle on the surface of the ocean.

He loved you, he told me, because of the way fire, whether it be the meager light of a candle or the steady emanation of the hearth, danced in your eyes, as his heart so often leapt for joy any time you were near.

He loved you, he told me, because you always blush when you laugh, as if you were caught unaware doing something naughty, when in reality you are one of the most humble, kind creatures he has ever known.

He loved you, he told me, and bid me count the ways with him, as a child might dote on their crush in secret, pulling dandelion petals and hoping that their beloved would just glance their way.

His love for you was an innocent love we so rarely see in our burgeoning modern world, among the machinery and the political strife. It was a precious jewel which I felt honored to behold, as if God himself pulled back a curtain from this man’s heart to bestow upon me the supreme gift of knowledge: how all hearts must eternally tick like hands across the face of time with gears of pure affection lest they despair in the face of duty and destiny.

He loved you, he told me, and he wanted me to tell you that if not for you he might not be here at all. For only one secret did he keep, which he bid me share with you in his final hour.

That fateful day when you appeared in his life like an angel descending from the gentle light of Heaven—he said you would recall that the axle on your carriage broke, right before the covered bridge on the road out of town.

The water was high in the river that day. Clarence was having a tough time reconciling himself to the future. His father was angry with him. His mother had passed some years before. He confided in me that he came to the river to throw himself in and be done with the misery of it all.

Instead, he came upon you and the old man who drove your carriage. As he helped repair the place where the axle tied into the spoke of the wheel, he said, he also felt his own heart mend.

He loved you, he told me, and he wanted me to tell you that you saved his life. So immersed was he in his newfound happiness with you that he never wanted to bring you down with the tale of his own despair.

I must say these sentiments astonished me in the measure of their eloquence, but more so in the intensity of their passion, and the sincerity of their intent.

Clarence will not be coming home. He passed on to behold the Grace of God after a long battle with fever. He took buckshot and one bullet, lodged too deep for the doctors to remove, and both of his hands were mangled so badly he could not write.

I want you to know I never met so noble a soul as your dear husband, Clarence. Despite his pain and the sure knowledge of the beckoning end, he encouraged others to keep up their spirits, and he kept mine aloft as well.

Please hold onto this letter, that you may one day read it to your child, for Clarence asked me specifically to pass on this message, that his poppet may pass it on to all who are willing to hear:

“War is Hell,” he told me, “but Love is Salvation, and were it in my power, I would descend to the darkest depths to fend off all the legions of evil so that my poppet and my dear child should never have to suffer the indignity of those base souls who wage war for no other reason than a dirty dime at the expense of men better than themselves. We fought bravely so that you might not have to fight at all. I will not survive to see the aftermath, but I assure you with all my heart that I will watch over you until that day when you are appointed to join me.”

I know that your heart is heavy, but I ask on behalf of this lovely and noble man who gave his life for so many others that you never forget how much he loved you, for I will always cherish his heartfelt declarations, his outpouring of affection for his poppet, his Penelope, that Paradise on Earth which convinced him all the more that there must be a Heaven holding a place for you both.

With Love,

Walt Whitman

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For more musings on Whitman and his influence on my own work, and to see the famous picture where he either evokes Merlin or prophecies Gandalf: