Page:The Collected Poems of Dora Sigerson Shorter.djvu/30

The third who met her upon her way
Was a Man with face so fair:
She knelt her down at his wounded feet,
And she laid her burden there.

“Oh I will give it to You” she said,
And fell in a swoon so deep,
The flying souls and their cries of joy
Did not wake her from her sleep.

Seven long days did her slumber last,
And, oh, but her dream was sweet,
She thought she wandered in God's far land,
The bliss of her hopes complete!

And when she woke on the seventh day
To her love's home did she go.
And there she met neither man nor maid
Who ever her face did know.

And lo! she saw set a wedding feast,
And tall by her own love's side
There leaned a maiden, all young and fair,
Who never should be his bride.

“A drink, a drink, my little page boy,
A drink I do pray you bring.”
She took the goblet up in her hand,
And dropped in her golden ring.

“He who would marry, my little page,
I pray he may drink with me,
‘To the old true love he has forgot,’
And this must his toasting be.”

When her false lover had got the cup
He drained it both deep and dry,
“To my dead love that I mourned so long,
I would that she now were nigh.”