So soft, so sweet, so still, its gliding flow,
None see its coming, all its presence know.
I saw a sufferer once—her wounds were deep,
And wide, and deadly, yet she could not weep;
But drop by drop her heart’s blood seemed to go,
And misery sore drank up her spirit’s flow.
Pale grief sat pictured on her woful face,
And every movement gave despair a place.
Not long she suffer’d thus—she rais’d her eyes,
All burning in their anguish, to the skies,