Volume 3 — From Once a Week. LOST FOR GOLD.
Reading edition
She stood by the hedge where the orchard slopes Down to the river below; The trees all white with their autumn hopes Looked heaps of drifted snow; They gleamed like ghosts through the twilight pale. The shadowy river ran black; "It's weary waiting," she said, with a wail, "For them that never come back. "The mountain waits there, barren and brown, Till the yellow furze comes in spring To crown his brows with a golden crown, And girdle him like a king. The river waits till the summer lays The white lily on his track; But it's weary waiting nights and days For him that never comes back. "Ah! the white lead kills in the heat of the fight. When passions are hot and wild; But the red gold kills by the fair fire-light The love of father and child. "'Tie twenty years since I heard him say, When the wild March morn was airy, Through the drizzly dawn--'I m going away, To make you a fortune, Mary.' {827} "Twenty springs, with their long grey days. When the tide runs up the sand, And the west wind catches the birds, and lays Them shrieking far inland. "From the sea-wash'd reefs, and the stormy mull, And the damp weed-tangled caves:-- Will he ever come back, O wild sea-gull. Across the green salt waves? "Twenty summers with blue flax bells, And the young green corn on the lea, That yellows by night in the moon, and swells By day like a rippling sea. "Twenty autumns with reddening leaves, In their glorious harvest light Steeping a thousand golden sheaves, And doubling them all at night. "Twenty winters, how long and drear! With a patter of rain in the street. And a sound in the last leaves, red and sere; But never the sound of his feet. The ploughmen talk by furrow and ridge, I hear them day by day; The horsemen ride down by the narrow bridge, But never one comes this way. And the voice that I long for is wanting ther, And the face I would die to see, Since he went away in the wild March air, Ah! to make a fortune for me. "O father dear I but you never thought Of the fortune you squandered and lost; Of the duty that never was sold and bought. And the love beyond all cost. "For the vile red dust you gave in thrall The heart that was God's above; How could you think that money was all, When the world was won for love? "You sought me wealth in the stranger's land, Whose veins are veins of gold; And the fortune God gave was in mine hand, When yours was in its hold. "If I might but look on your face," she says, "And then let me have or lack; But it's weary waiting nights and days For him that never comes back."
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