XIX.

What means this lonely tear-drop
That blurs my troubled sight,
From olden times returning
Back to mine eyes to-night?

Its many glimmering sisters
Are vanished long ago,
In the night and the wind they vanished
With all my joy and my woe.

And like the mists of evening
Did those blue stars depart,
That smiled all joys and sorrows
Into my trusting heart.

Alas! my love, too, melted
Like idle breath one day;
Oh lingering, lonely tear-drop,
Thou also fade away!

XXX.

The pale half-moon of autumn
Through clouds peers doubtfully.
Within the lonely churchyard
The parsonage I see.

The mother reads in her Bible,
The son at the light doth gaze;
One drowsy daughter is nodding,
While another speaks and says:

"Ah me! how dreary the days are!
How dull, and dark, and mean!
Only when there's a funeral
Is anything to be seen."

The mother looks from her Bible:
"Nay, only four in all
Have died since thy father was buried
Without by the churchyard wall."

Then yawns the eldest daughter,
"I will starve no longer here;
I will go to the Count to-morrow,
He is rich, and he loves me dear."

The son bursts out a-laughing:
"At the 'Star' three huntsmen drink deep;
They are making gold, and they promise
To give me their secret to keep."

Toward his lean face, flings the mother
Her Bible, in wrath and grief.
"Out! God-forsaken beggar,
Thou wilt be a common thief!"

They hear a tap on the window,
And behold a beckoning hand.
There in his sable vestments
They see the dead father stand.

XXXI.

To-night is wretched weather,
It snows, and storms, and rains;
Out in the pitch-black darkness
I gaze through the window-panes.

There flickers a lonely candle,
Slow winding down the street;
And a beldame, with her lantern,
Goes hobbling on in the sleet.

I think 'tis for eggs and butter
That she braves this weather wild,
To bake a cake for her daughter,
Her grown-up ailing child.

Who lies at home in her arm-chair,
And sleepily blinks at the light.
Over her beautiful forehead
Her golden curls wave bright.

XXXII.

They think my heart is breaking,
In sorrow's bitter yoke,
I too begin to think it,
As well as other folk.

Thou large-eyed little darling,
Do I not always say
I love th