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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 'ill caw from the windy tall

elm-tree,

And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea, And the swallow 'ill come back again with summer o'er the wave,

But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave.

Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine,

In the early, early morning the summer sun 'ill 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.

I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when you pass,

With

your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass.

I have been wild and wayward, but you'll forgive me now;

You'll kiss me, my own mother, and forgive me ere I go:

Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild,

You should not fret for me, mother, you have another child.

If I can, I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place;

Though you'll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face;

Though I cannot speak a word, I shall hearken what you say,

And be often, often with you when you think I'm far away.

Good night, good night, when I have said good night forevermore,

And you see me carried out from the threshold of the door;

Don't let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green :

She'll be a better child to you than ever I have been.

She'll find my garden-tools upon the granary

floor;

Let her take 'em: they are hers: I shall never garden more:

But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rosebush that I set

About the parlor-window and the box of mign

onette.

Good night, sweet mother: call me before the day is born.

All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn; But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year,

So, if you're waking, call me, call me early, mother dear.

CONCLUSION.

THOUGHT to pass away before, and yet alive I am;

And in the fields all round I hear the bleating of the lamb.

How sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year!

To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violet's here.

O sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies,

And sweeter is the young lamb's voice to me that cannot rise,

And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow,

And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go.

It seemed so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun,

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