Voices from the Lakes, and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Now trod she with a restless step the room,
A fevered light within her burning eye;
Anon she paused, and looked out thro' the gloom,
To listen for a step that might go by.

She said,—

“The hills look sad thro' the driving rain,
The wind beats loud on the lattice pane,
I wait for his coming, but all in vain.

Against the shore of the stormy lake
The restless waters in white foam break,
And falling back, a wild moaning make.

I shudder all o'er with a creeping chill,
A dreadful sense of a coming ill;
I pace the room, and cannot keep still.

355

I have watched three days that seem like years,
I have waked three nights in blinding tears;
I am sick at heart with these doubts and fears.

The shadows are gathering all around,
The night is closing. I hear no sound,
But screech of owl, and bay of hound.

There is no one near—I am all alone,
No one to care how I weep or moan,
Oh that I lay 'neath the cold grey stone!

Hark! thro' the rain and wind that beat,
I hear a sound as of coming feet,
Is it he, is it he that I long to greet?

Oh, no, no! they have passed the door,
Why should I hope when hope is o'er?
O fool, to be fooled for evermore!

O false heart! they told me so;
Told me of all the grief and woe,
But I scorned their words, and bade them go.

And he, what cares he for the pain,
The vanished hope, the aching brain,
The heart that breaks with the maddening strain!”

356

She sank upon the floor, and grovelled low,
And in the dust she bowed, and laid her head,
And only that she shook with sobs of woe
You might have deemed she was amongst the dead.

So fares it with all, and so it ever must,
Who make frail man their hope, not God their trust,
Their idols shattered lie, and crumbled into dust.