Page:Pocahontas and Other Poems (NY).pdf/281

280 Laid low! Laid low! How slight the aspen stem Round which her heart's joys twined. Yet all are frail, All like the crisp stalk in the reaper's path.

—Read I thy lesson right, my little one? See, by thy side, the strong man sleepeth well. The tall, proud man, who tower'd, like Israel's king, With head above the people. Yet his wail, Was it not weak as thine when death launch'd home The fatal dart? Humility befits The born of earth, the crush'd before the moth; And the deep teaching of such lowly creed Best cometh from the dead. Ah! let me kneel Here on this mound, where sleeps my early friend, And wait her words in lowliness of soul. Thou speak'st not to me! thou whose silver tone Did lead the way, in all our sweet discourse, When, lost in lonely haunts, we wander'd long, Shunning the crowd. Twin-soul thou wert with mine. Yet still I think I loved thee not enough When thou wert with me. Thy clear, welcome voice, Thy soft caress at meeting, it would seem That sometimes clouds around my spirit hung, Checking the fond response. Beloved one, Was it not so? And there were tender words I might have said to thee, and said them not. And there were higher flights of glorious thought, And nobler trophies on life's rugged steep, To which I might have urged thee. Was it so? Make answer from thy pillow. Blind and weak!