And kneeling at the father's feet,
Whose long and venerable hairs,
Now whiter than the mountain sleet,
Could not have numbered half his prayers,
Was one—I cannot picture true
The cherub beauty of his guise;
Lilies, and waves of deepest blue,
Were something like his hands and eyes!
Like yellow mosses on the rocks,
Dashed with the ocean's milk-white spray,
The softness of his golden locks
About his cheek and forehead lay.
Father, thy tresses, silver-sleet,
Ne'er swept above a form so fair;
Surely the flowers beneath his feet
Have been a rosary of prayer!
We know not, and we cannot know,
Why swam those meek blue eyes with tears;
But surely guilt, or guiltless wo,
Had bowed him earthward more than years.
All the long summer that was gone,
A cottage maid, the village pride,
Fainter and fainter smiles had worn,
And on that very night she died!
As soft the yellow moonbeams streamed
Across her bosom, snowy fair,
She said, (the watchers thought she dreamed,)
"'Tis like the shadow of his hair!"
And they could hear, who nearest came,
The cross to sign and hope to lend,
The murmur of another name
Than that of mother, brother, friend.
An hour—and St. Mary's spires,
Like spikes of flame, no longer glow—
No longer the confessional fires
Shine redly on the drifted snow.
An hour—and the saints had claimed
That cottage maid, the village pride;
And he, whose name in death she named,
Was darkly weeping by her side.