Hours flew by like honey-laden
Bees, with sting and honey laden:
Days, like ghostly shadows, flitted
By; and weeks and months rolled onward
With a never-ceasing rolling,
Like the blue bright waves a-rolling,
Never quiet--never ending!
Still the girlish, grief-worn figure,
Might be seen, with vacant glances,
Threading through life's rushing whirlpool--
Gliding, like a sunbeam, o'er it--
To that small corpse-crowded graveyard;
Where for hours she'd sit and murmur,
With a wild and plaintive wailing;
"Come back, darling! Come back, darling;
Come, for I am broken-hearted."
When at home, with nimble fingers
Oft she'd clothe a doll and call it
Her sweet babe--her darling baby--
Her long-absent, long-lost baby!
Her fair bonny-featured baby!
And her husband would bend o'er her,
With low words of pure affection--
As when first he woo'd and won her.
And her home was not the dungeon--
The sad, dark, and dismal dungeon--
The cold death-vault of her infant,
With the drear and ghastly rushlight:
But a home of cottage comfort,
Every sweet of love and loving.
Yes! the wan and pallid mother
Found on that dark night, a husband--
Found a home; but--lost her reason!