I had gathered the grapes and my sisters had played?
“Where, oh! where,” I exclaimed (too unnerved then to fear),
“Are the joys of my youth?” “Gone,” was hissed in my ear.
As the blind lead the blind it seemed I was lead
Over stubble and thorns till my feet ached and bled.
Then we stood by a door that had rotted apart—
Here the thistle had broken its soft, downy heart—
I glanced toward the mantel, an owl hooted there,
And a rat made its nest in my mother’s old chair,
“Oh! God,” I repeated, “’tis too hard to bear,”