"O ask me not, my mother dear! I feel that death approaches near, I shall not rise from this my bed; But, mother mine! when I am dead— O mother mine! call round me all My playmates to my funeral; And let the friends I loved receive The little gifts that I shall leave; Then let me sleep in peace beneath.—
There's one, my mother, I should grieve To be divided from in death. Then call around me priests divine, And pious pilgrims, mother mine! The forehead of thy dying daughter Steep in the rose's fragrant water. And, mother, let my forehead be Dried with the rose-leaves from the tree; And pillow not thy daughter's head, O mother! with the common dead; But let me have a quiet tomb Adjacent to my Mirjo's home, And near my Mirjo's nightly bed; So when he wakes his thoughts shall dwell With her he loved and loved so well." S. J. B.
LXXIV
LOVE FOR A BROTHER
The sun sank down behind the gold-flower'd hill; The warriors from the fight approach the shore: There stood young George's wife, serene and still: She counted all the heroes o'er and o'er, And found not those she loved—though they were three:— Her husband, George; her marriage friend, another Who late had led the marriage revelry; The third, her best-loved, her only brother.
Her husband he was dead; she rent her hair For him—Her friend was gone,—for him she tore Her cheeks—Her only brother was not there: For him she pluck'd her eye-balls from their bed. Her hair grew forth as lovely as before; Upon her cheeks her former beauties spread; But nothing could her perish'd sight restore: Nought heals the heart that mourns a brother dead. S. J. B.
LXXV
REBUKE
"Maiden! hast thou seen my steed?" "Faithless one! not I, indeed! But I heard that thou hadst tied him To the mountain-maple tree; When a stranger pass'd beside him, Full of scorn and rage was he: With his hoofs the ground he beat; Of his master's guilt he knew. Not one maiden did he cheat. No; that master cheated two: One has borne a wretched child; One with grief and shame is wild." S. J. B.