Autumnal leaves :: :: University of Virginia Library

There once wandered with me a beautiful child,
With eyes like the antelope, lambent and mild;
And she looked at me long, with an earnest gaze,
As I watched the sun sink in a golden haze.
She knew not the thoughts that were floating away,
Through the closing gates of that radiant day;
But a something she read in my dreaming eyes,
Of the pale autumn leaves, and the sunset skies;
And a chill came over her, she knew not whence—
'Twas the shadow of older experience.
She looked up afraid at the heaven's blue dome,
And murmured, “I'm tired. I want to go home.”
The child's timid glance, and her quivering tone,
Came gliding like ghosts, when my soul was alone;
And oft, when I gazed at the heaven's blue dome,
She seemed to be saying, “I want to go home.”
She grew up a woman, that lovely young child,
With eyes like the antelope, lambent and mild;
But she lived not to see life's drear autumn day
Fade slowly in silence and darkness away.

365

In her spring-time of freshness, fragrance, and bloom,
Disease stole her roses to strew on the tomb.
Then often she looked at the heaven's blue dome,
And sighed, “I am tired. I want to go home.”
My autumn of life is fast passing away,
Bringing on the long night, and cold winter day;
And I often remember her childish sigh,
As she turned from my face to the twilight sky.
When I sit on her grave, at sunset, alone,
Her voice seems to speak in that tremulous tone;
And longing I look up to heaven's blue dome,
Saying, “Father! I'm tired. I want to go home.”

THE END.

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