Poems (Hoffman)/The Maiden's Lament to Her False Lover

by Martha Lavinia Hoffman

THE MAIDEN'S LAMENT TO HER FALSE LOVER

I have flown from you like a wounded bird
With a crimson stain on its innocent breast
To a land all new
To a sky more blue
A Summer of sunshine and flowers and dew,
And once again shall my song be heard
With its added undertone of pain
And my innocent breast with its crimson stain
Shall fill and gurgle with song again.
I shall not die of your cruel dart
I shall live, I shall live to be happy yet
Though your arrow pierced near my glad young heart
I shall live and sometime I shall forget;
God rules and reigns and is over all
And with my Father I cannot fall,
The world is too beautiful, God too just,
I shall shake from my spirit the lower dust.
Nearer, nearer Heaven in this upper clime
I shall soar and sing o'er the wrecks of Time,
And you in the groveling dust of things
Where an angel would shudder to trail her wings,
You, starving your soul for its natal food
And chaining your soul from its highest good
May hear a voice far above your aim,
You may look and wonder and name my name
When you hear the echo of some high strain
That is born of triumph o'er sin and pain,
Purer, clearer, more high, more calm
An earthly dirge born an angel psalm
You may look and listen and see me again,
The little bird with its happy heart
That you pierced one day with your cruel dart,
Singing a song that is born of pain
On its innocent breast no crimson stain.