To-night I saw the sun set,--he set and left behind
The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind;
And the new-year's coming up, mother; but I shall never see
The blossom on the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree.
Last May we made a crown of flowers; we had a merry day,--
Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May;
And we danced about the May-pole and in the hazel copse,
Till Charles's Wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops.
There's not a flower on all the hills,--the frost is on the pane;
I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again.
I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high,--
I long to see a flower so before the day I die.
The building-rook'll caw from the windy tall elm-tree,
And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea,
And the swallow'll come back again with summer o'er the wave,
But I shall lie alone, mother, within the moldering grave.
Upon the chancel casement, and upon that grave of mine,
In the early, early morning the summer sun'll shine,
Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill,--
When you are warm-asleep, mother, and all the world is still.
When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light
You'll never see me more in the long gray fields at night;
When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool
On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool.
You'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade,
And you'll come sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid.
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