Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Richard HenryStoddard

471 The Lover

IT is dark and lonesome here,

Beneath the windy eaves:—

The cold, cold ground my bed,

My coverlet dead leaves,

My only bedfellow

The rain that wets my sleeves!

If it be day, or night,

I know not, cannot say,

For I am like a child

Who has lost his troubled way,

Till I see the white of the hoar-frost—

Then I know it is day!

I touch the silent strings,

The broken lute complains;

The sweets of love are gone,

The bitterness remains,

Like the memory of summer

In the time of the long rains!

A few more days and nights,

My tears will cease to flow;

For I hear a voice within,

Which tells me I shall go,

Before the morning hoar-frost

Becomes the night of snow!