AFTER LONG YEARS.
231
I have looked on the grave of my father to-day, My heart throbbing painfully slow;I have knelt at the feet of my mother, and hid My tears in her robings of woe.Sad silence is hanging about the old house That once rung with music and song,And only the desolate wail of the winds Is mournfully sweeping along.
My brother's light laughter, so boyish and free, That once floated out on the breeze,No longer is heard in the dim, solemn shade,— Deep quiet reigns under the trees.He has wandered away to the gold-tinted West, And made him a home by the sea;His letters, so full of his young wedded joy, Are lovely and precious to me.
One sister wears now on her beautiful face The mystical traces of tears;O'er the grave of the husband she loved, she has wept Three desolate, sorrowful years.
