Page:Poems Sigourney 1827.pdf/116

"Why do I live?"—she sometimes sigh'd
    "Thus crush'd, beneath affliction's rod?"—
But stern reproving thought replied,
    "Ask not such question of thy God!"—

Yet still she lov'd that pine-clad hill
    Where erst her love his way would take,
Still wander'd near his favourite rill
    Or sat by Mora's glassy lake.

His white-wash'd cot with roses gay,
    Had lone and tenantless been kept,
But moulder'd now by time's decay,—
    And mid its ruins oft she wept.

The sound of flail at early morn,
    Or harvest song of happy hind,
Awoke undying memory's thorn
    To probe anew her wounded mind.

Where near her cell, the quarries bold
    With veins metallic richly glow,
And where their yawning chasms unfold
    Dark entrance to the depths below,

Once, while the miners toil'd to trace,
    Between two shafts an opening new,
Mid earth and stones, a human face
    Glared sudden on their startled view.—

A form erect, of manly size,
    In that embalming niche reposed,
And slight and carelessly the eyes
    As if in recent dreams were closed.