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Her golden head was laid beside The pillow where my mother died. She laughed, while waking from her sleep, And only wept to see us weep. And sometimes I feel glad to know She has been spared life's bitterest woe; Whatever griefs her path may cross, She did not know a mother's loss.

I see her now, the elfin thing, Her bright hair tossed in many a ring; The sunshine seemed in that bright hair More golden than it seemed elsewhere: And sometimes when, in leisure hours, I wreathed around it wild wood-flowers, I fancied such a sunny glow Must be upon an angel's brow. Her cheek had an uncertain red— Now feverish, and now faintly shed; Less like the colour on the rose, Than that the cloud of evening shows. I've often watched her while she slept, Until for very love I wept;

And she was changeful in her mood,— Now haunting some green solitude, Now bursting forth in sudden glee, Like the wild bird upon the tree,