There are piteous sounds of mourning in a far off northern home,
Where o’er childhood’s kindling dawn-light sudden clouds of darkness come —
There are heard a father’s groanings, and a mother’s broken sighs —
There a voiceless sorrow troubleth the clear deeps of maiden eyes.
In their fearful dreams, at midnight, they behold him left to die,
With the hard, hot ground beneath him, and above a brazen sky —
In his fainting, in his thirsting, in his pain and wild despair,
Vainly calling on his dear ones, through the heavy desert-air!
Oh, the bitter self-reproaches mingled in the cup they drain!
Oh, their poor hearts, pierced and tortured by a sharp, remorseful pain —