Page:Poems Sigourney 1827.pdf/73

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At a pit he stay'd, whose narrow brink Mid swollen snow was grooved,— The trembling steed from that chasm did shrink, But the rider sat unmoved.

They bare him sad from his lonely seat, His father bound his head,— And they laid him low in that dark retreat, And breath'd, in accents simply sweet, The dirge for the youthful dead.

With pride, in a life of toil severe, His hardy breast had glow'd, And it scorn'd, in the ease of the slothful bier, To pass to its last abode.

But his own loved steed, which his hands had drest In the mirth of his boyhood's day, By the load of his lifeless limbs was prest, As he sped to his home of clay.

Yet oft to the depths of yon rock-barr'd dell, Where no ray from heaven hath glow'd, Where the thundering rush of the Markefoss fell, The trembling child shall point and tell How that fearful horseman rode.

 

How slow yon tiny vessel ploughs the main!— Amid the heavy billows now she seems 