The Fork is whirling wreck
Of field and farm and wood;
And many a foaming fleck
Drives where the rock-fence stood;—
A torrent sweeps break-neck
Above the washed-out blood.
Night deepens: still she waits
Expectant in despair:
The Fork has reached the gates,
The wood’s wreck everywhere.
But when the storm abates,
She thinks, he will be there.
She sees the lightning rush
Its blazing hells above;
She hears the thunder crush
Heaven as if earthquake-clove—
Loud in the tempest’s hush
She calls with all her love.
He comes, she feels; and stands
The rushing waters o’er
Her feet, and on her hands
And hair the wild down-pour,
The lightnings are wild brands
To light him to her door.
Night deepens: but she knows
God will not fail to send
Her love to soothe her woes,
And one day’s errors mend.—
The wild stream foams and flows
Booming in fall and bend.
Again the lightnings light
The night like some wild torch;
The waters foam and fight;
And one uprooted larch
Sweeps down, with something white
Wedged in it, by her porch.
She stoops: the lurid rain
Beats on her back and head—
Ay! he hath come again!
With livid lips once red!
A bullet in his brain
The night hath brought him—dead!