There’s not a flower on all the hills: the frost is on the pane:
I only wish to live till the snow-drops come again:
I wish the snow would melt, and the sun come out on high;
I long to see a flower so before the day I die.
The building rook will caw from the windy tall elm-tree,
And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea,
And the swallow will come back again with summer o’er the wave.
But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave.
Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine,
In the early, early morning the summer sun will shine;