I.

Now, list thee, love, again, and I will tell
Of other scenes, and changes which befell
The hero of our tale. A wanderer still,
Like a lost sheep upon a wintry hill--
Wild through his heart rush want and memory now,
Like whirlwinds meeting on a mountain's brow;
Slow in his veins the thin blood coldly creeps;
He starts, he dreams, and as he walks, he sleeps!
He is a stranger--houseless, fainting, poor,
Without the shelter of one friendly door;
The cold wind whistles through his garments bare,
And shakes the night dew from his freezing hair.
You weep to hear his woes, and ask me why,
When sorrows gathered and no aid was nigh,
He sought not then the cottage of his birth,
The peace and comforts of his father's hearth?
That also thou shalt hear. Scarce had he left
His parents' home, ere ruthless fortune reft
His friend and father of his little all.
Crops failed, and friends proved false; but, worse than all,
The wife of his young love, bowed down with grief
For her sole child, like an autumnal leaf
Nipped by the frosts of night, drooped day by day,
As a fair morning cloud dissolves away.
Her eyes were dimmed with tears, and o'er her cheek,
Like a faint rainbow, broke a fitful streak,
Coming and vanishing. She weaker grew,