Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/313

From their old resting-place: the trackless wood
Still led them on with promises of good,
As when the mirage leads a thirsty band
With palm-tree visions o'er the arid sand.

I know not where they settled down at last:
Their lives and homes from out my tale have passed,
And left me naught, or seeming naught, to trace
But cheerless record of the empty place.
Where long unseen the palm-thatched cabins stood,
And made more lonely still the lonesome wood.

Long lives of men passed over; but the years,
That line men's faces with hard cares and tears,
Pass lightly o'er a forest, leaving there
No wreck of young disease or old despair;
For trees are mightier than men, and Time,
When left by cunning Sin and dark-browed
Crime To work alone, hath ever gentle mood.
Unchanged the pillars and the arches stood,