“O H , my dear one! oh, my lover!
Comes no faintest sound to you,
As I call your sweet words over,
All the weary night-time through!
Drearily the rain keeps falling—
I can hear it on the pane;
Oh, he cannot hear my calling—
He will never come again!”
So a pale one, lowly lying
On her sick bed, often cried—
“Come, my dear one, I am dying!”
But no lover's voice replied.

“When the morning-light is shining
Over all the eastern hills,
Thou, whose heart is still divining
Every wish in mine that thrills—
If he come, and I am dying,
If my hands be cold as clay,
And my lips make no replying
To the wild words he will say,
As he fondly bends above me,
Just as you are bending now,
Saying how he used to love me,
Pressing kisses on my brow—

Take this ringlet ere from twining
Dampened in that dew so near;
He has often praised its shining—
Will he when I cannot hear?
Give it softly to his keeping,
Saying, as I would have said,
‘Go not through the world a weeping
For the dear one who is dead;’
And, as you the shroud upgather,
That shall hide me from his eyes,
Tell him of the pitying Father—
Of the love that never dies.”

Through the eastern clouds the amber,
Burning, tells the night-time past!
Dark and silent is her chamber—
She is sleeping well at last!
Is't the white hand of her lover
Puts her curtain's fold away?
Is it he that bends above her,
Saying, “Dear one, wake, 'tis day!”
No; the wind, despite Death's warning,
'T is, that in her curtain stirs,
And the blue eyes are the morning's,
That are bending down to her's.
Lay the hands, for love's sake lifted
Oft in prayer, together bound,
While the unheeded ringlet drifted
Lightly, brightly, to the ground.