The Forsaken

She sat beside the mountain springs,
Her feet were on the water’s brink,
And oft she wept when she beheld
The birds that lighted there to drink;
She wept: but as they spread their wings,
Her sweet voice follow’d them on high:
“He will return—I know him well;
He would not leave me here to die.”

And there she sat, as months roll’d on,
Unmindful of the changing year;
She heeded not the sun, or snow,
All seasons were alike to her.
She look’d upon the frozen stream,
She listen’d to the night bird’s cry:
“He will return—I know him well;
He would not leave me here to die.”

And still she sits beside the springs,
And combs the gold drips of her hair;
Red berries for a bridal crown
At early morn she places there.
At every shadow on the grass
She starts, and murmurs with a sigh,
“He will return—I know him well;
He would not leave me here to die.”