’Twas then he set this ring on my hand, as he murmured low,
Words that come back to me sweet and sad as my mother’s funeral hymn:
“Dear hand, it shall guide me forevermore as now!”
It is coarse with time and toil; it has lost its hold on him.
I think the sunsets now, are not so sweet and bright;
The sun dies now in the west, and his smile is sickly and worn,
Looking back o’er a waste of sand; it was such a different light
That hand in hand we watched ’neath the blossoming thorn.
Oh that Northern village! how sheltered and calm it lay