Oh luxury! Beyond the heat
And dust of town, with dangling feet
Astride the rock below the dam,
In the cool shadows where the calm
...
Her hair was, oh, so dense a blur
Of darkness, midnight envied her;
And stars grew dimmer in the skies
To see the glory of her eyes;
...
Neglected now is the old guitar
And moldering into decay;
Fretted with many a rift and scar
That the dull dust hides away,
...
Pa he bringed me here to stay
'Til my Ma she's well.--An' nen
He's go' hitch up, Chris'mus-day,
An' come take me back again
...
Like a drift of faded blossoms
Caught in a slanting rain,
His fingers glimpsed down the strings of his harp
In a tremulous refrain:
...
She will not smile;
She will not stir;
I marvel while
I look on her.
...
Mellow hazes, lowly trailing
Over wood and meadow, veiling
Somber skies, with wildfowl sailing
Sailor-like to foreign lands;
...
'O I am weary!' she sighed, as her billowy
Hair she unloosed in a torrent of gold
That rippled and fell o'er a figure as willowy,
...
O the Lands of Where-Away!
Tell us--tell us--where are they?
Through the darkness and the dawn
We have journeyed on and on--
...