MARIANA IN THE SOUTH.
23
Dreaming, she knew it was a dream
Most false: he was and was not there.
She woke: the babble of the stream
Fell, and without the steady glare
Shrank the sick olive sere and small.
The riverbed was dusty-white;
From the bald rock the blinding light
Beat ever on the sunwhite wall.
She whispered, with a stifled moan
More inward than at night or morn,
"Madonna, leave me not all alone,
To die forgotten and live forlorn."
One dry cicala's summer song
At night filled all the gallery,
Backward the latticeblind she flung,
And leaned upon the balcony.
Ever the low wave seemed to roll
Up to the coast; far on, alone
In the East, lange Hesper overshone
The mourning gulf, and on her soul
