Gone hath the Spring, with all its flowers,
And gone the Summer's pomp and show
And Autumn in his leafless bowers
Is waiting for the Winter's snow.
I said to Earth, so cold and gray,
“An emblem of myself thou art: ”
“Not so,” the earth did seem to say,
“For Spring shall warm my frozen heart
“I soothe my wintry sleep with dreams
Of warmer sun and softer rain,
And wait to hear the sound of streams
And songs of merry birds again.
“But thou, from whom the Spring hath gone,
For whom the flowers no longer blow,
Who standest, blighted and forlorn,
Like Autumn waiting for the snow:
No hope is thine of sunnier hours,
Thy winter shall no more depart;
No Spring revive thy wasted flowers,
Nor Summer warm thy frozen heart.”
Doctor Clark, on hearing this read, told Rebecca she need not take its melancholy to heart, for he could assure her that there was no danger of his friend's acting on her account the sad part of the lover in the old song of Barbara Allen. As a medical man, he could safely warrant him to be heart-whole; and the company could bear him witness, that the poet himself seemed very little like the despairing one depicted in his verses.
The Indian Simon calling this forenoon, Rebecca and I went into the kitchen to see him. He looks fierce and cruel, but he thanked Madam Saltonstall for her gifts of food and clothing, and, giving her in return a little basket wrought of curiously
