Miss Baker

THE SETTING sun threw a parting ray

O’er the lowly couch where the dying lay;

The fragrant breeze from a rosy bough,

Moved the long, dark locks on the hueless brow;

A tear-drop stood in the swimming eye,

And the bosom laboured with a sigh:

Then the dying turn’d to the sunset glow,

And said, with a faltering voice and low—

“Yon sun goes down—but never to me

Shall the glory of his rising be:

For my form is faint, my heart throbs slow,

The fountain of life is chill and low:

The spirit’s home looks brightly afar,

And I go to dwell with my kindred there.

I wish for my lowly grave to be made

In my native vale, ’neath the wild-wood shade.

When the dying strife in my bosom is o’er,

And closes mine eye to wake no more,

Then bear ye my pallid corse away

To my own green vale, where the sunbeams play—

Where the streams with a gentle murmur flow,

The wild birds sing, and the fresh winds blow.

There first I sported when wild and free,

And there may the place of my resting be;

My fathers sleep there ’neath the green oak shade—

With theirs let my lowly couch be made.”