THE MAIDEN’S SORROW.
Reading edition
———
BY WM. C. BRYANT.
———
Seven long years has the desert rain
Dropped on the clods that hide thy face;
Seven long years of sorrow and pain
I have thought of thy burial place.
Far on the prairies of the west,
None who loved thee beheld thee die;
They who heaped the earth on thy breast
Turned from the spot without a sigh.
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 the spotted fawn the doe;
There, when the winter woods are bare,
Walks the wolf on the crackling snow.
Soon wilt thou wipe away my tears;
Yesterday the earth was laid
Over my father, full of years,
Him whose steps I have watched and stayed.
All my work is finished here;
Every slumber, that shuts my eye,
Brings the forms of the lost and dear,
Shows me the world of spirits nigh.
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.