Seven long years has the desert rain
Dropped on the clods that hide thy face;
Seven long years of sorrow and pain
I have thought of thy burial-place;
Thought of thy fate in the distant West,
Dying with none that loved thee near,
They who flung the earth on thy breast
Turned from the spot without a tear.
There, I think, on that lonely grave,
Violets spring in the soft May shower;
There, in the summer breezes, wave
Crimson phlox and moccasin-flower.
There the turtles alight, and there
Feeds with her fawn the timid doe;
There, when the winter woods are bare,
Walks the wolf on the crackling snow.
Soon wilt thou wipe my tears away;
All my task upon earth is done;
My poor father, old and gray,
Slumbers beneath the churchyard stone.
In the dreams of my lonely bed,
Ever thy form before me seems,
All night long I talk with the dead,
All day long I think of my dreams.
This deep wound that bleeds and aches,
This long pain, a sleepless pain—
When the Father my spirit takes,
I shall feel it no more again.