Early and late poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary :: :: University of Virginia Library

BALLADS AND NARRATIVE POEMS.

LOCHMARLIE.

She stood, the hoping and fearing wrought
To one consummate and sovereign thought,
A dear little dimpled maiden.
But she did not watch for the boat on the tide,
With the black nets dragging over the side,
And the silver herrings laden.

The waves lay quiet about her feet,
And she made the weed-strewn beach so sweet,
Both she and her song together;
The two little shoulders out of her gown
Peeping timid, and rosy-brown
As her Glenfern hills of heather.

All out of the West the scarlet fell,
And the gold and the gray like a chasuble,
On the moaning and dark Lochmarlie,
And over the red and the gold and gray
The song from the young mouth rippled away,
And the glad refrain was Charley!

No sounds were heard but the fisher's oar,
As his boat came scudding in to the shore,
Her nets like a black veil wearing,
And his shout, as he lightly leaped to the land;
But what to the maiden there on the sand
Was the prize of silver herring!

She hid her shoulders deep in her gown,
And dropt her careless eyelids down
To the water of dark Lochmarlie;
And over the fisher and nets and all
Her song went on like the beach-bird's call,
And the wild refrain was Charley!

Slow the night came over the dew,
But never a sail the mist breaks through—
“Sweetheart, can you thus dissemble?”
And fainter and fainter the love-song grows,
Till it breaks as the raindrops break in the rose
To a soft and soundless tremble.

Now all is still as still can be,
And the bell strikes one, and two, and three,
And the morning, whitening over,
Casts the moon in the sea like a ring,
Which a maid might out of her window fling
To her mad and moaning lover.

The strong-armed fisher comes to the shore,
And heads his slighted boat once more
Where the silver prize is lying;
But it seems to him that the wild green wave
Turns as the grass turns over a grave,
And his wrecked heart fills with sighing.

'Tis many a year since the maiden's lay,
With the gold and the scarlet, died away
From the water of dark Lochmarlie;
But still with the night do the tides return
To the heathery hills of wild Glenfern
With the wail of Charley! Charley!

THE BETROTHED.

I have acted as they have bid me, he said that he was blest,
And the sweet seal of betrothal on my forehead has been prest;
But my heart gave back no echo to the rapture of his bliss,
And the hand he clasped so fondly was less tremulous than his.
They praise his lordly beauty, and I know that he is fair,

Oh, I always loved the color of his sunny eyes and hair!
And though my bosom may have held a happier heart than now,
I have told him that I love him, and I must not break the vow.
He called me the fair lady of a castle o'er the seas,
And I thought about a cottage nestled in among the trees;
And when my cheek beneath his lip burned not, nor turned aside,
I thought how once a lighter kiss had left it crimson-dyed.
What care I for the wind-harps breathing low among the vines,
I better love the swinging of the sleety mountain pines;
And to track the timid rabbit in the snow-shower, as I list,
Than to ride his coal-black hunter with the hawk upon my wrist.
And I fain would give the grandeur of the oaken-shadowed lawns,
And the dimly-stretching forest where the red roe leads her fawns,
To gather the thistle and the fennel's yellow bloom,
Where frowning turrets cumber not the path with gorgeous gloom.
Let them wreathe the bridal roses with my tresses as they may;
There are phantoms in my bosom that cannot keep away;
To my heart, as to a banquet, they are crowding, pale and dread,
But I told him that I loved him, and it cannot be unsaid.

THE WIFE OF LUMLEY MOORE.

Have you not seen her many a day,
Leaning out of her door,
List'ning and looking far away—
The wife of Lumley Moore?

The leaves of the rooftree, thick and dim,
Trembling through and through,
And little birds with necks stretched slim,
As if they listened too?

Have you not seen the air a-hush
And tender with her praise,
And the squirrel hide in his hazel-bush
Ashamed of his clumsy ways?

Her timid glances all alert,
As if her peace was gone,
And her step as light as she feared to hurt
The grass she trod upon?

Have you not heard her piteous sighs
That reached to other years,
And seen the light of her sweet, sweet eyes
Going out in tears?

Poor lady! when at midnight dark
The death-watch beats his drum,
She turns no more in her bed, to hark
For feet that do not come.

The brier its thorny arms all wide
Has thrown across her door,
And the lizard slips where lived and died
The wife of Lumley Moore.

THE PEASANT PAVO.

A STORY FROM THE SWEDISH.

On a sterile farm in the northland
The peasant Pavo lived,
And for seven sweet years together
His crops and his cattle thrived;
For he wrought with a hand untiring,
And wrought with a heart at peace,
And the merciful Lord and Master
Gave back the good increase.

His boys were rathe and ruddy,
And his girls as fair as the morn,
With hair as bright as the yellow light
In the ears of harvest corn.
And Pavo's wife was comely,
And she never stayed to sigh,
But spun at the wheel, and ground the meal,
And baked the cakes of rye.

The high bleak moors were alway
With Pavo's furrows crossed,
And white as snow in the reeds below
The horns of his cattle tossed.
So seven sweet years together
The prosperous sheaves were bound,

And then the sliding snow-drifts
They froze the seed in the ground.

“Good man, good man!” cries Pavo's wife,
“Our work no more God speeds,
And the silver horns of our cattle
They are drooping under the reeds;
And the heads of our darling children
They are drooping too,” she said.
“Take staff and away, good man, I pray,
Or else we shall starve for bread!”

“Nay, nay!” said the peasant Pavo,
“Let us better courage take;
God tryeth the trust of his servant,
But he will not all forsake!
So sing, good wife, at the cradle,
And sing at the distaff still,
And henceforth, mark, put half of bark
And half of rye, in the mill!

“For me, I will set my furrow
Down deeper by half, nor cease
To break in the morn my cake of corn
And bark, in the sweetest peace.”
And the hand of the wife, like a lily,
It fluttered against the pane,
To beck him away from his plow that day,
But all and all in vain.

He digged between the snow-drifts,
And harrowed the sweet seed down,
Till all the high, bleak moorlands
Were green instead of brown.

But the sleet and the hail descended
All bitter and sharp one day,
And cut from the fair young corn-stalks
The tender ears away.

Then Pavo's wife fell fretting,
And would not be at peace;
“You have sowed,” she said, “but where is the bread?
God giveth us no increase!
I tell you, man, there hath fallen
A curse on the plow this day;
So let it stand and rust in the land,
And take your staff and away!”

“Nay, nay!” said the patient Pavo,
“God doth but his servant try;”
And his lambs he sold from out their fold,
And bought him seeds of rye.
And set his plow yet deeper,
And deeper harrowed the grain,
And the high, bleak moorlands blossomed
With a living green again.

And the gracious Lord and Master
He blessed the tireless hand,
And all like a yellow sunset
The harvest shone in the land;
And the wife of the peasant Pavo
Her cheeks they burned like flame,
And she bound her sheaves with willow-leaves,
In token of her shame.

MARY AND THE MILLER.

“What are you thinking of, Mary?
Wilful and wise little Mary—
Tell me, my sly little fairy,
What are you thinking of now?”
“Of my new Easter dress
In the rose-scented press—
Of that, and my little brown cow!”

“What are you looking at, Mary?
Glad little golden-haired Mary,
Tell me, my sunshiny fairy,
What are you looking at now?”
“At a poor silly moth
I took out o' the froth
Of the milking-pail, mother, I vow!”

“What are you harking to, Mary?
Dear little dewy-eyed Mary—
What do you hark to, my fairy,
With such a wild, wondering look?”
“To the breeze on the hill, mother,
Not to the mill, mother—
Not to the mill by the brook!”

“Why are you sighing so, Mary?
Poor little, pale little Mary—
And is it about the young fairy
The miller has married but now?”
“It is not for her ring—
That is no such great thing—
There are six on the horn of my cow!”

“Why are you weeping so, Mary?
Sad little, sweet little Mary—
Sad little, sick little Mary,
Why are you weeping so, dear?”
“Oh, I think I shall die!
If I do, let me lie
Where the mill-stream will sing all the year.”

PIERRE RAVENAL.

Among the rocks and glaciers,
Where the summer never came,
There lived, one time, a hunter—
Pierre Ravenal by name.
He had a hut in the mountain,
And a little red-cheeked wife,
But to chase and kill the chamois
Was the pleasure of his life.

And he did not love his fireside,
Nor love the milk of his goats,
Nor love his cloak of camel-cloth,
As he loved their silken coats.
His eye was all undazzled
By the plume of the rarest bird,
If he happed to cross in the snow-fields
The trail of a chamois herd.

One day, when over the glacier
The wind blew bitter and chill,
Pierre Ravenal shouldered his carbine,
And tramped away with a will.

And the good little wife by the chimney
She carded her flaxen wisp,
And left the quarter of rabbit
To broil on the coals to a crisp.

Ah! what was the blazing fagot,
And what was the savory meat,
When Pierre, her hunter and husband,
Was off in the freezing sleet!
But he loved to chase the chamois
As well as he loved his life,
Nor ever dreamed of the trouble
In the heart of the good little wife.

So, while she sat by the chimney,
And carded a shirt for her Pierre,
He laughed to himself, and shouted,
For the grandest luck of the year.
He had chased a herd of chamois
Up, up through the jagged blocks,
To the ledge where they fell sheer downward,
Four hundred feet of rocks!

When all at once, beside him,
A dwarf, with a hand of ice,
Stood close, and clutched and held him,
As if with an iron vice.
Oh, never was seen a monster
So black, and of shape so ill;
And the tones of his speech they grated
Like stones that are crunched in a mill.

And his beard it shook and rattled
Like withered reeds in a storm,

As he held poor Pierre, head foremost,
By all the length of his arm;
And backward and forward swung him,
With his ugly face in a frown,
As if he were ready to dash him
Four hundred feet sheer down.

“I've caught you killing my chamois!”
He cried, “as I knew I should;
And you, for the sake of justice,
Shall give back blood for blood!”—
“Have mercy, oh, have mercy!
Good King of the Dwarfs,” cried Pierre,
“For the sake of my starving children,—
For the sake of my wife, so dear!

“They are faint with cold and hunger,
In our poor hut under the snow,—
Good King of the Dwarfs, have mercy,
And for love's sake, let me go!”—
And the heart of the monster softened
When he heard the piteous call,
And he dragged the hunter in across
The jagged top of the wall.

“Go back!” he said, as he crushed him
All up in his arm, like a sheaf,
“Go back to your hut; but I tell you,
You are none the less a thief!”
And then the dwarf, still growling,
Dropt down upon his knees,
And digged from under the snow-cakes
A golden-rinded cheese.

“Take this to your wife and children,
And by my kingly grace,
Whenever they eat a mouthful,
Another shall come in its place;
But only just so long,” he said,
“As you hold your honor good;
For if I catch you here again,
I will have back blood for blood!”

Then Pierre took up his carbine,
Saying, “Stand our bargain so!”
And buttoned the cheese beneath his coat,
And tramped across the snow.
And seven long years together
His good little wife and he
Lived in their hut by the mountain side,
As happy as they could be.

And still, as they ate their supper
Of cheese, and went to bed,
The golden rind grew whole again,
The same as the dwarf had said.
And what with the cup of goat's milk,
And the Alpine flower or two
Sold now and then to a traveller,
They were well enough to do.

But the little wife had all the while
A thorn in her bosom hid,
For Pierre would keep his carbine bright,
Whatever else he did.
“To scour the lock so often,
It is a foolish thing to do!”

She would say, because in secret
She feared the worst was true.

One day, as by the chimney
She sat at her wheel and sung,
With her face away from the rafter
Where the polished carbine hung,
Pierre Ravenal slipt it lightly
From off the beam so low,
And with it slung on his shoulder
Went tramping through the snow.

And when a herd of chamois
Before him leaped and ran,
He straight forgot the bargain
With the dwarfish little man,
And scurried over the snow-fields,
And up and up the blocks
Of steel-blue ice, till he stood again
By the awful wall of rocks.

Then all at once the monster,
With a hand so strong and brown,
Doubled him up, and dashed him
Four hundred feet sheer down!
And still about the ink-black pool,
Where he lost his life that day,
You may see him spinning round and round,
Like the wheel of his wife, they say.

And she, poor soul, when she missed him,
Snapt straight her song in twain,

And never in all her lifetime
Could join it on again.
For she knew when she brought her cheese-cake
To end her week of fast,
By the golden rind still broken,
That her fears were true at last.

THE LAST VOYAGE.

At shut of day they sat and talked,
In their old house by the sea;
The weather-beaten Solomon,
And his good wife Marsalee.

“The sun looks like a ship,” he said,
“That is nearly come to land;
That slanting beam, like a plank pushed out
To take aboard some hand.”

And when at length the gold-backed clouds
Crouched in the dark, from view,
He said, “It will be a stormy night;
May the good ship weather through!”

At last the old wife Marsalee
Could win no answering word;
The ship was gone, the plank hauled in,
And Solomon was aboard.

WORLDLY WISE.

It was the boatman Ronsalee,
And he sailed through the mists so white,
And two little ladies sat at his knee,
With their two little heads so bright;
And so they sailed and sailed—all three—
On the golden coast o' the night.

Young Ronsalee had a handsome face,
And his great beard made him brown;
And the two little ladies in girlish grace
They kept their eyelids down—
The one in her silken veil of lace,
And the one in her woolsey gown.

For one little lady lived in the wood,
Like a flower that hides from the day;
Her name was Jenny—they called her the good,
And the name of the other was May;
And her palace window looked on the flood
Where they softly sailed away.

Long time the balance even stood
With our Ronsalee that day;
But what was a little house in the wood
To a palace grand and gay?
So he gave his heart to Jenny the good,
And his hand he gave to May.

THE HUNTER'S WIFE.

'T was all through the roses, so ripe and so red,
And all when the summer was shining her best,
That Lindsey, my lover, rode into the West,
The land of the prairie, a-hunting to go
For the fawn and the pheasant, the dove and the doe—
'T was all through the roses, and roses are dead.

I look from the porch-side and dream, as I must,
Of the time when I pulled the green grape-leaves apart,
As Lindsey, my lover, my sweet, sweetest heart,
Rode into the shadow, and out of my sight—
Ah! never a day-dawn has broke on that night,
And all the green grape-leaves are dry as the dust.

He sat in his saddle, so bright and so brave—
The dint of his hoof-strokes along the wolf's track
I followed and followed—I could not stay back!
O Lindsey, my lover, my hunter, my friend,
I would I had followed thee on to the end—
Into wilderness places, ay, into the grave.

In the way of his riding the rough rushes fell,
And the fox in his covert all timidly bayed,
And the eagle rose, flapping his broad wings afraid,
For the gun on his shoulder hung polished and bright,
And the knife at his girdle flashed out like a light,
And the bit at his bridle, it rung like a bell.

'T was all through the roses, and when the year stood
At the sunset, and shone in the gold-colored leaves,

And thin, like a sickle that hangs among sheaves,
The moon of the autumn looked out of the mist,
The brows of my babes for their father I kissed,
And kept up a truce with my heart, as I could.

'T was all through the roses, and when they were dead,
And the rain slanted slow from the clouds all the day,
And my dogs in the warmth of my chimney-logs lay;
And while of a-shiver, with horn upon horn,
My cattle crouched under the broad-bladed corn,
Thou still hast some roof-tree, O lost love! I said.

Hush, darlings, oh, hush! he will come back again
When only a day or a night has gone by!
And I rocked them asleep to the kingfisher's cry,
The starling's wild clatter, the call of the quail,
And the beat upon beat of the pioneer's flail;
But I promised and pacified, all, all in vain.

At last, when the lonesome lament of the loon
Began to be heard, while the frost, sharp and cold,
Was cutting his harvest of scarlet and gold,
And when in the prairie-grass, fallen and dead,
The wings of the starlings no longer shone red,
My lullaby fell to a mournfuller tune.

Then fear came upon me, and day after day
I lingered, in visions, his camp-grounds about—
The game-pots were steamless, the fires all were out;
The tent-poles a-tumble, and ready to fall,
That held the rough buffalo-hide for a wall,
And the black-snake lay under the fagots and hay.

Like dry sands my hearth-stones slid under my feet,
As I sat with just only my door-planks between
My babes and the panther so lithe and so lean,
And with only the blaze of the clearing to scare
The hungry and horrible eyes of the bear,—
And so came the winter in harness of sleet.

And now, as the wind ploughs the furrows so white
Across the long prairie, I cannot but cry—
My stables are littered with oat-straw and rye,
The breath of my cattle makes warmth in the cold,
My dogs are in kennel, my sheep are in fold,
But where lies my Lindsey, my lover, to-night?

Again and again from my pillow I start,
And feel down the wolf-skin that covers the beds
Of my darlings, and drag to my bosom their heads,
As under my windows, now to and now fro,
I hear the wild catamount stealthily go—
The blood all a-curdle and cold in my heart.

Yet sometimes a sweet vision blesses my eyes:
I see a gay huntsman ride over the snow,
And I blush, for the gifts at his girdle I know:
The red combs of cocks, and the antlers as clear
And white as the ivory, are gifts for his dear,
And I call to my darlings, Awake, and arise!

I call at my peril—the dream groweth dim—
The combs red as roses, the white antlers pass;
And I see but the lift of the long prairie grass,
And hear but the whimper and moan of unrest
From the swollen and snag-slivered streams of the West,
But there cometh no news, and no tidings of him.

O women who sit while the winter winds rave,
And mourn for the husbands and lovers so low
Beneath the wild drifts of the leaves and the snow,—
Remember, while grief in its fountain thus stirs,
Your burden is lighter to bear than is hers
Who mourns for her dead that had never a grave.

O women whose hands, when the winter has fled,
Shall pluck off the roses and strew them so deep
O'er the beds where your dearly-beloved ones sleep,
The while in your desolate darkness you pine,—
Remember your sorrow is lighter than mine
Who know not, nor can know, the place of my dead.

SYLVIA.

Lone among the evening shades,
Brown and purple, red and gray,
Went the tender Sylvia,
Fairest of the rustic maids,
Driving home her pastured cows:
Close along the drooping boughs
Of a black, enchanted grove,
Went she, dreaming dreams of love,
Dreaming dreams about a lover,—
Went she, treading down the clover,
Ivy buds and daisies fair,
And wild violets, unaware,—
Went she, slowly, with her cows,
Treading through the round red clover.
Ah, to see her thoughtful brows,
And her sweet mouth, was to love her!

In the black, enchanted grove
Lived a spirit dressed with clay,
And to see her was to love;
So he sang a herdsman's lay,
Bringing all her cows that way.

Of their meeting, if they met,
Not a word the story tells,—
But of days in clouds that set,
And of winds in gusty swells
Driving madly every way,—
And of cattle gone astray
In the rainy woods; of skies
Shutting all their golden eyes;
And of moanings in the air,
That did seem, the story says,
For some lost soul—let us pray
That it was not Sylvia's.

BALLAD.

FROM THE SCLAVIC.

All in the early morning
The Sclavic maid so fair
Arose at her mother's calling,
And combed her yellow hair;

And laced with silken ribbons
Her bodice of leaf-green,
And tript adown the mountain path
The frosty reeds between.

And while the rough winds kissed her,
She knelt at the fountain's brink,
But the ice was frozen all across,
And her pitcher would not sink.

Ah! then she fell a-weeping,
And her red mouth trembled white,
For she feared her mother's cruel eyes,
As well indeed she might.

“Come, sun!” she cried through her sobbing,
“Come out of the clouds so brown,
And lick the ice with your golden tongue,
And let my pitcher down!

“O eagle, strong-winged eagle,
Come out of the skies so blue,
And split the ice with your horny beak,
And let my pitcher through!”

But the sun, for all her sobbing,
Came not through the clouds so brown,
To lick the ice with his golden tongue,
And let her pitcher down.

And the eagle, proudly soaring,
Came not from his home so blue,
To make a wedge of his horny beak,
And split the ice in two.

Ah! then in the early morning
A piteous sight was seen—
Her tears all frozen into pearls,
Along her bodice green.

For, lo! betwixt the stiff black reeds,
Adown the mountain path,
She heard her mother calling
In her foolish woman's wrath:

“Oh, wilful, stubborn daughter,
Since thou idlest all the day,
I would the winds might beat thee,
And take thy breath away!

“Yea, beat and break and crush thee,
Since thou art so high and proud,
And I would the needles of the frost
Might sew thee in a shroud!”

Alas for the wicked woman,
Little dreamed she in that hour
That a word may be, for good or ill,
Omnipotent in power.

And alas for the Sclavic maiden,
She turned her east and south,
And her heart it fluttered into her throat,
And fluttered out of her mouth.

The winds they fell to beating her,
And she knew not where to flee,
And, to 'scape from her mother's cruel eyes,
She hid in a maple-tree.

And in its time of blooming,
That tree grew strangely fair—
Its leaves like the maiden's bodice green,
And its blossoms like her hair.

But still, as the sunshine gilded
Its head, so brave and high,
There shivered through its branches old
A dull and dolorous cry.

One day, as it chanced, there rested
Two lads in its pleasant shade,
And they were the minstrel brothers
Of the little Sclavic maid.

And, lo! as they played a merry tune
They each grew heavy at heart,
And the wood of their viols all at once
It brake and snapt apart.

Then cried they both: “This maple
Is the best that e'er we saw.
Oh, wouldn't it make us fiddle-sticks
Right silver-sweet to draw!”

And straight they fetched an axe and set
Its sharp edge in the wood,
And all in a spout the sap came out,
And ran as red as blood;

While all the body of the tree
It trembled low and high,
And all the tender branches made
A dull and dolorous cry.

And when it fell beneath their strokes,
And lay along the land,
The touch of every leaf was like
Some gentle little hand.

But, ah! the saddest part of all
My tale is yet to tell:
For when from out the viol strings
At last the music fell,

The mother's cold and cruel heart
Grew wild with pain and fear—
She knew it was her daughter's voice
That sounded in her ear.

And, as the maple-tree had done,
She fell to rise no more,
But prostrate lay, and so became
The door-stone of her door.

SECOND SIGHT.

Little lass of Dalnacardoch,
Carding wool of Dalnacardoch,
Oh, the dreams that lie about her,
Full of light, and over full,
Like the clouds in golden weather,
While she sits and smites together
The two cards that tear the tangles
From her fleece of heathland wool.

Slyest lass of Dalnacardoch,
Shyest lass of Dalnacardoch!
Oh, I know your pretty secret,
And ye have no need to speak;
'T is your thoughts about a lover
That are running in and over—

Running sadly in and over
That dear dimple of your cheek.

As the lily in the water
Swims up softly through the water,
Giving forth her folded sweetness
When the sun is in the skies,
So from out its place of hiding
Comes your heart up at the bidding
Of the bold audacious glances
That he sends you from his eyes.

In the harvest of the barley
'T was the sheaf of Nichol Marley
That was tied with gay green ribbons
All untwisted from bright hair,
While the moon, so fair and fickle,
Like a dagger, not a sickle,
Struck down sharply through the mist-cloud,
Lying swarth-like on the air.

Oh, the broom that waved so yellow
O'er the heathlands, now is sallow,
Oh, the grass as green 's a ribbon.
Now is withered, wild, and gray;
And the sheared sheep then incloses,
With their backs as pink as roses,
Loose among the dry black nettles
And the rough-leaved thistles stray.

Oh, the lass of Dalnacardoch,
Woe, the lass of Dalnacardoch,
Still her gold-dreams lie about her,
And she lives in sweet belief

That the heath with bloom is shining,
And the grass as green 's the twining
Of the fortune-witching ribbon
Twisted in with Nichol's sheaf.

He is hunting on high Rannoch—
On the heathery moor of Rannoch,
By the brave Loch-Ericht eagle,
Driving blindly toward his nest;
True to nature, onward, sunward,
With a broken leg dragged downward,
And a clot of wet, red feathers,
Growing sodden in his breast.

'T is his rifle-shots thick flying,
By the screaming and the crying
Of the patriarchal ravens
Sailing stately, far and near,
And by faintly outlined doubles
Moistened red along the stubbles,
Where in one bed, both together,
Death o'ertook them, doe and deer.

Fearless lass of Dalnacardoch,
Tearless lass of Dalnacardoch,
Tease the tangles from the tangles—
Comb and card your fleeces white
With your heart as light 's a feather,
And your dreams like golden weather,
And God save ye, little lassie,
Save ye from a second sight!

CHARLEY'S DEATH.

The wind got up moaning, and blew to a breeze;
I sat with my face closely pressed on the pane;
In a minute or two it began to rain,
And put out the sunset-fire in the trees.

In the clouds' black faces broke out dismay
That ran of a sudden up half the sky,
And the team, cutting ruts in the grass, went by,
Heavy and dripping with sweet wet hay.

Clutching the straws out and knitting his brow,
Walked Arthur beside it, unsteady of limb;
I stood up in wonder, for, following him,
Charley was used to be;—where was he now?

“'T is like him,” I said, “to be working thus late!”—
I said it, but did not believe it was so;
He could not have staid in the meadow to mow,
With rain coming down at so dismal a rate.

“He 's bringing the cows home.”—I choked at that lie:
They were huddled close by in a tumult and fret,—
Some pawing the dry dust up out of the wet,
Some looking afield with their heads lifted high.

O'er the run, o'er the hilltop, and on through the gloom
My vision ran quick as the lightning could dart;
All at once the blood shocked and stood still in my heart;—
He was coming as never till then he had come!

Borne 'twixt our four work-hands, I saw through the fall
Of the rain, and the shadows so thick and so dim,
They had taken their coats off and spread them on him,
And that he was lying out straight,—that was all!