Page:Pocahontas, and Other Poems.djvu/288

 272 THE ELM-TREES.

But many a column of its trust

Lay broken in the grave. The ancient and the white-hair'd men,

Whose wisdom was its stay, For them I ask VI, and Echo's voice

Made answer, " Where are they ? "

I sought the thrifty matron,

Whose busy wheel was heard When the early beams of morning

Awoke the chirping bird. Strange faces from her window look'd,

Strange voices fill'd her cot ; And, 'neath the very vine she train 'd,

Her memory was forgot.

I left a youthful mother,

Her children round her knee, Those babes had risen into men,

And coldly look'd on me ; But she, with all her bloom and grace,

Did in the church-yard lie, While still those changeless elms upbore

Their kingly canopy.

Though we, who 'neath their lofty screen, Pursued our childish play,

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