Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/310

296 Their mother and their brother: evening brought A son and father to the lonesome place That saw the last night's scene; and there, her face Laid earthward, speaking dumbly to her heart, They found her, as the hands that tore apart The son and mother flung her from their chief, And with one cry her heart had spent its grief.

They bore the cold earth that so late did move In household happiness and works of love, Unto their rude home, lonely now; and he Who laid her there, from present misery Did turn away, half-blinded by his tears, To see with inward eye the far-off years When Swedish toil was light and hedgerows sweet; Where, when the toil was o'er, he used to meet A simple gray-eyed girl, with sun-browned face, Whose love had won his heart, and whose sweet grace Had blessed for threescore years his humble life.