I sit alone in evening-gloom,
The night is cold, and shrill the wind,
I make a church out of my room,
To find some solace for the mind.
Oft have I spoken mid the throngs
Of such who pitied the bereaved,
Oft have I listened to the songs
Which other burdened hearts relieved.
But with my grief I am alone,
Far from the scene of those who weep,
Within the old ancestral home,
Beyond the ocean’s stormy deep.
I have his picture at my right,
I have it clearer in my heart,
For blurred and darkened is the sight,
And rays of mortal day depart.
* * * * *
Thou wert so strong, so brave, so true,
I looked to thee, as boy and youth,
My life did take from thee its hue
In whatsoe’er it has of truth.
Thy toil, thy suffering, and love,
The love of home and native land,
So strangely clear come to me now,
Like blessings of an honest hand.
Thou saidst to me: “I will not leave
The land wherein thy mother rests;”
How could I seek thy heart to grieve
With all this new world’s varied quests?
Farewell, I may not see the place,
Where they have laid thee by her side,
But memories of vanished days,
Shall ever dear with me abide.
The distance would not let me lay
A garland on thy sable bier,
Therefore this wreath, a simple lay,
Fresh with the dew of many a tear.
I’ll weave out of my heart a wreath
Of flowers which e’er shall blossom there,--
Like those red blood-drops on the heath,
The ling which winter cannot sere.