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 thought 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 williout 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.