Page:Pleasant Memories.pdf/162

Around whose rough circumference of trunk
A garden seat was wreathed; and there they sat,
Watching gray-vested twilight, as she bore
Such gifts of tender, and half-uttered thought
As lovers prize. When the thin-blossomed furze
Gave out its autumn sweetness, and the walls
Of that low cot with the red-berried ash
Kindled in pride, they parted; he to toil
Amid his college tasks, and she to weep.
—The precious scrolls, that with his ardent heart
So faithfully were tinged, unceasing sought
Her hand, and o'er their varied lines to pore
Amid his absence, was her chief delight.

—At length they came not. She with sleepless eye,
And lip that every morn more bloodless grew,
Demanded them in vain. And then the tongue
Of a hoarse gossip told her, he was dead;
Drowned in the deep, and dead.
                                            Her young heart died
Away at those dread sounds. Her upraised eye
Grew large, and wild, and never closed again.
"Hark, hark! he calleth, I must hence away,"
She murmured oft, but faint and fainter still,
Nor other word she spake.
                                       And so she died.

And now that lonely cottage on the moor
Hath no sweet visitant of earthly hope,