Page:Bohemian legends and other poems.djvu/105

 When she combs my hair, see my tears full fast, For she pulls it till the blood comes at last; When you combed my curls, oft you kissed my hair, And you loved to hear me called good and fair; When she washes me with her rough, hard hand, See, she sometimes scrubs me, yea, e’en with sand; When you washed me, oh, never did I cry. Oh, how can you sleep, and leave me to cry?” Then his mother’s voice said low, “So, my son, I will come for thee at the rising sun.” Then the little child, with a happy smile, Said to his father, “In a little while You can dig my grave by my mother’s side; By this time to-morrow I shall have died; For she told me true, at the rising sun I will come and take thee, my darling son.” When the morning came, dead upon his bed Lay the little child, but his soul had fled To those realms on high, where his mother stood— No need of speaking, all was understood. On the third sad day, by his mother’s side They laid him gently, who so oft had sighed, And his father, gazing upward at the sky, Said, “Oh, would to God, that I too could die.”