IV.

Hours flew by like honey-laden Bees, with sting and honey laden: Days, like ghostly shadows, flitted By; and weeks and months rolled onward With a never-ceasing rolling, Like the blue bright waves a-rolling, Never quiet--never ending! Still the girlish, grief-worn figure, Might be seen, with vacant glances, Threading through life's rushing whirlpool-- Gliding, like a sunbeam, o'er it-- To that small corpse-crowded graveyard; Where for hours she'd sit and murmur, With a wild and plaintive wailing; "Come back, darling! Come back, darling; Come, for I am broken-hearted." When at home, with nimble fingers Oft she'd clothe a doll and call it Her sweet babe--her darling baby-- Her long-absent, long-lost baby! Her fair bonny-featured baby! And her husband would bend o'er her, With low words of pure affection-- As when first he woo'd and won her. And her home was not the dungeon-- The sad, dark, and dismal dungeon-- The cold death-vault of her infant, With the drear and ghastly rushlight: But a home of cottage comfort, Every sweet of love and loving. Yes! the wan and pallid mother Found on that dark night, a husband-- Found a home; but--lost her reason!