Page:Pocahontas and Other Poems (NY).pdf/125

He is not there, my little ones!
    So suddenly he fled,
They cannot bring it to their minds
    That he is of the dead.
Yet oft the hymns he sang with them,
    So tunefully and slow,
Shall wake sad echo in their souls,
    Like parting tones of wo.

There was his favourite noonday seat,
    Beneath yon trellised vine,
To mark the embryo clusters swell,
    The aspiring tendrils twine;
Or, lightly leaning on his staff,
    With vigorous step he went
A little way among the flowers,
    With morning dews besprent.

How dear was every rising sun
    That cloudless met his eye,
And, nightly, how his graceful prayer
    Rose upward, warm and high;
For freely to his God he gave
    The blossom of his prime,
So He forgot him not amid
    The water-floods of time.

The cherish'd memories of the past,
    How strong they burn'd, and clear,
Prompting the tale the listening boy
    Still held his breath to hear,