Page:Pleasant Memories.pdf/230

                               Bleak autumn winds
Swept through the rustling leaves, and seemed to pierce
The shivering orphan, as he bowed him down.
All desolate, to look into the pit.
But from the group a kindly matron came,
And led him thence.
                          When spring returning threw
Her trembling colors o'er the wakened earth,
I wandered there again. A timid step
Fell on my ear, and that poor orphan child
Came from his mother's grave. Paler he'd grown,
Since last I saw him, and his little feet
With frequent tread had worn the herbage down
To a deep, narrow path. He started thence,
And would have fled away. But when I said
That I had stood beside him, while they put
His mother in the grave, he nearer drew,
Inquiring eagerly,—
                          "Then did you hear
The minister, who always speaks the truth,
Say that she'd rise again?—that just as sure
As spring restored to life the grass and flowers,
She would come back?"
                         "Yes.— But not here, my son;
Not to live here."
                          "Yes, here, this is the spot
Where she was laid. So here she' ll rise again,
Just where they buried her. I marked it well,