Nights when the sad winds sigh,
My foot and fingers tire;
Nights when the waves run high,
I shiver by the fire;
And oft I stoop to brush
The flax across my face,
For tears will rise and gush,
But must not leave a trace:
My spinning-wheel sings in tireless rhythm,
"I wish I were, wish I were, wish I were with him.
Julia Stockton Dinsmore's never married. From her poetry, we deduce that she had a lover and that he was killed in the Civil War.