Page:Poems Dorr.djvu/44

Hilda watched beside her dead,
   Day and night.
Of those hours of mortal woe
Human ken may never know;
She was silent, and his ear
Kept the secret, close and dear,
Of her watch beside her dead,
   Day and night!

What she promised in the darkness,
   Who can tell?
But upon that rock-ribbed shore
Burns a beacon evermore!
And beside it, all the night,
Hilda guards the lonely light,
Though what vowed she in the darkness,
   None may tell!

Spinning, spinning by the sea,
   All the night!
While her candle, gleaming wide
O'er the restless, rolling tide,
Guides with steady, changeless ray
The lone fisher up the bay,
Hilda spins beside the sea,
   Through the night!

Fifty years of patient spinning
   By the sea!
Old and worn, she sleeps to-day,
While the sunshine gilds the bay;
But her candle, shining clear,
Every night of all the year,
Still is telling of her spinning
   By the sea!