Seven long years has the desert rain
  Dropped on the clods that hide thy face;
Seven long years of sorrow and pain
  I have thought of thy burial-place.

Thought of thy fate in the distant west,
  Dying with none that loved thee near;
They who flung the earth on thy breast
  Turned from the spot williout a tear.

There, I think, on that lonely grave,
  Violets spring in the soft May shower;
There, in the summer breezes, wave
  Crimson phlox and moccasin flower.

There the turtles alight, and there
  Feeds with her fawn the timid doe;
There, when the winter woods are bare,
  Walks the wolf on the crackling snow.

Soon wilt thou wipe my tears away;
  All my task upon earth is done;
My poor father, old and gray,
  Slumbers beneath the churchyard stone.

In the dreams of my lonely bed,
  Ever thy form before me seems;
All night long I talk with the dead,
  All day long I think of my dreams.

This deep wound that bleeds and aches,
  This long pain, a sleepless pain--
When the Father my spirit takes,
  I shall feel it no more again.