THE MAIDEN’S SORROW

Seven long years has the desert rain

Dropped on the clods that hide thy face;

Seven long years of sorrow and pain

I have though of thy burial-place;

Thought of thy fate in the distant West,

Dying with none that loved thee near,

They who flung the earth on thy breast

Turned from the spot without a tear.

There, I think, on that lonely grave,

Violets spring in the soft May shower;

There, in the summer breezes, wave

Crimson phlox and moccasin-flower.

There the turtles alight, and there

Feeds with her fawn the timid doe;

There, when the winter woods are bare,

Walks the wolf on the crackling snow.

Soon wilt thou wipe my tears away;

All my task upon earth is done;

My Poor father, old and gray,

Slumbers beneath the churchyard stone.

In the dreams of my lonely bed,

Ever thy form before me seems,

All night long I talk with the dead,

All day long I think of my dreams.

This deep wound that bleeds and aches,

This long pain, a sleepless pain-

When the Father my spirit takes,

I shall feel it no more again.