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Beside him he would have her stay, And bones to be her playthings gave.

14.

At whiles the busied man would raise
Above the brink his bare gray head,
With quiet smile a moment gaze,
And turn to labour for the dead.
15.

And when, slow-winding up the hill,
Between the elms, the funeral came,
Her voice would sound so cheerly shrill
As if 'twere all an infant's game.
16.

But when the burial rite was there,
The drooping forms, the weeping eyes,
The awful thrill, the hallowing prayer,
The sudden whisper lost in sighs,-

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Which utter'd from its wondrous As if a sunbeam played between

clock

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Those hearts and hers to warm her so.

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14.

Her brow upon the headstone leant,
Her foot upon the ground,-

24.

The sunshine sparkled through the sky,

The breeze and lark sang

gether,

on to

And yet there seemed, afar and nigh, She knew not what the mind will One silent world of azure weather.

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The maiden now was left to be
Her father's only prop and stay,
And in her looks was plain to see
A heart resolved, but never gay;
18.

A loveliness that made men sad,
Like some delightful, mournful ditty,
Too fair for any but the bad
To think of without love and pity.
19.

Each household task she duly wrought,
No change but one the house could
know,

And peace for her was in the thought, Her mother would have wished it so. 20.

But often in the silent hours Of summer dawn, while sleeping,

men were

She rose to gather fragrant flowers,
And wet their leaves with weeping.

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25.

But from beyond the old Yew-tree
A voice disturbed the maiden's ear,
And in the lone tranquillity

It sounded strangely near.

26.

"Twas now a broken word of prayer,
"Twas now a sob of Mother! Mo-
ther!"

And all the sorrow bursting there
The heart she felt had sought to
smother.

27.

No woman's voice so deeply rings,
Though men by graves but seldom

pray;

And, ah! how true the grief that brings
A man to weep by light of day!

28.

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The black boughs' vault of shade adorn-
ing,-

A fixed, fair, living monument,
Amid the light of morning:

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By love she taught him best to love, She gave him hope by trust in God;

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