Page:Poems Shipton.djvu/62

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I see but the thistle and brier,
 No beauty the desert adorns:
The branches lie dead for the fire,
 My tears only water the thorns.

I lay down and slept in my sorrow,
 No more could my heart find to say;
I cast all my care of to-morrow
 On Him who bore with me to-day.

My Shepherd His night-watch was keeping,
 He saw me with sorrow oppressed,
And soft on the weary one sleeping
 Arose a sweet vision of rest.

Dark and cold seemed the path I was treading,
 The long, tangled grass round me lay,
The forest trees mournfully shedding
 Their leaves on my desolate way.

The thorn and the bramble abounded,
 The wild, barren waste round me spread;
But sweet in the stillness resounded,
 "The Lord can give life to the dead!"

Low down where the shadow was deep
 I marked a white violet bloom;
(A watch o'er the dead, Lord, thou keepest;
 Thy hand rolled the stone from the tomb.)