Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Hamilton Aïdé b. 1829

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.”