Page:Landon in Pictorial Album.pdf/28

    Her golden head was laid beside
The pillow where my mother died.
She laughed, while waking from her sleep,
And only wept to see us weep.
And sometimes I feel glad to know
She has been spared life's bitterest woe;
Whatever griefs her path may cross,
She did not know a mother's loss.

    I see her now, the elfin thing,
Her bright hair tossed in many a ring;
The sunshine seemed in that bright hair
More golden than it seemed elsewhere:
And sometimes when, in leisure hours,
I wreathed around it wild wood-flowers,
I fancied such a sunny glow
Must be upon an angel's brow.
Her cheek had an uncertain red—
Now feverish, and now faintly shed;
Less like the colour on the rose,
Than that the cloud of evening shows.
I've often watched her while she slept,
Until for very love I wept;

    And she was changeful in her mood,—
Now haunting some green solitude,
Now bursting forth in sudden glee,
Like the wild bird upon the tree,