Wives, mothers, maidens, wistfully, in vain
Questioned the distance for the yearning sail,
That, leaning landward, should have stretched again
White arms wide on the gale,
To bring back their beloved. Year by year,
Weary they watched, till youth and beauty passed,
And lustrous eyes grew dim, and age drew near,
And hope was dead at last.
Still summer broods o'er that delicious land,
Rich, fragrant, warm with skies of golden glow:
Live any yet of that forsaken band
Who loved so long ago?
O Spanish women, over the far seas,
Could I but show you where your dead repose!
Could I send tidings on this northern breeze,
That strong and steady blows!
Dear dark-eyed sisters, you remember yet
These you have lost, but you can never know
One stands at their bleak graves whose eyes are wet
With thinking of your woe!
* * * * *
=_Edgar Allen Poe._= (Manual, p. 510.)
From his Works.
=_384._= "THE RAVEN."
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,--
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door;
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door,--
Only this, and nothing more.
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