Virginia Ann Bedinger (Lucas) (43)

Virginia Ann Bedinger, daughter of Lt. Daniel Bedinger and Sarah Rutherford was born 08 April, 1808 in Suffolk Co., Virginia while her father was commandant of the U. S. Navy Shipyard at Norfolk.  The family soon after removed to the family home, Bedford, in Shepherdstown, Virginia, now in West Virginia. In this poem she writes of her younger sister Henrietta and childhood memories..    

​From Virginia to Henrietta 
Bedford 1827. 

Oft pensive memory wakes 
With all her feeling train 
And silently her way she takes 
O’er childhood’s paths again 
Thine image then she brings to me 
And me thinks thy form I see 
With laughing eye and curls of jet 
Little blooming Henriett 

When thru fields and meadows gay, 
Decked with blooming flowers, 
Joyously we used to stray, 
And spend the rosy hours, 
Or beneath the beech trees shade, 
Oft in sportive mood we played. 
The moss grown rock, it is there yet, 
Doth remember Henriett? 

Every joy my childhood knew, 
Is blended still with thee 
Rapidly the moments flew, 
Which brought such bliss to me. 
The stream which wandered thro’ the wood, 
How oft upon its banks we stood, 
I can not think without regret, 
Of these loved scenes now, Henriett. 

But though these joys have passed, 
which gilded life’s bright morn; 
Unfading still our love will last, 
Its evening to adorn. 
When pain or sickness pales my cheek, 
Thy sympathising heart I seek, 
Oh do not think I can forget 
Thee, my sister Henriett. 

Tough this world you rove 
And many friends you find, 
No love is like your sister's love, 
So constant true and kind, 
And when this weary life is o’er 
Oh may we meet on yon bright shore, 
No more to part when once we’ve met, 
My gentle sister Henriett.