Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1868-02-19
2uetry.
From the Home journal.
THE STORY OF A SONG.
BY JAnEs A. WHITNEY.

Twas where the waves swung TO the shore,
With sough and swell and mimic rear,
Scarce louder than the breeze whosesway
The ash tree bent that summer day;
Where from the sand in wrinhled blue.
The calm sea swept beyond the view,
And in the West all brown and lone
A mountain . summit grandly shone.
There sat maid whose voice rose high
In happy pathos toward the sky,
As light she hymsed an ancient lay
or some far time long gone away
Into the dim forgotten past,
When hearts were true and hopes could last !;
And as she sang. there fingered by
Her sailor love with dreamy eye,
Whose heart was borne in joy along
The while be listened to the song.
Thus, once. he heard the tender hymn.
Rise clear aad sweet by oceans brim.
The days passed by, and staunch and brave
A ship rode far upon the wave.
Ere long the sailor. saw, the sails
Swell proud in Ceylons spiry gales.
And heard the anchor drop where low
The Indian coasts in splendor glow;
And whether in the nocn-day light.
Or watches of the Orient night,
Still fingered in his heart the rhyme,
The maid had sung the summer time,
But soon the ship came sailing back
Upon the self same ocean track
And soon he saw the mountain lcns
Rise grandly as IL .rst had shone
And soon again he sought the shore.
That he might hear the song once more.
He heard the song, not clsar and high,
But softer than a lullaby
Yet still the came as when OF old
The sea breeze heard the story told:
Yet still the same, though strangely low
Did the pure liquid numbers flow,
While paled the singers brow and bright
Hcreye CLEANED with unearlhly light.
When the rare cadence died away.
Within his arms the maiden lay.
Silent and cold. With bended hetd.
The lover held the singer dead
And by the wave the lovely shore
Should know that vibrant voice no more,
He kissed the brow so white and fair.
And ringlet took from the clustering hair;
Then where the bright blossoms the night dews
lave
ofthe dark brown heather. be dug grave,
And deep and dark in the mountains breast
Laid doan the hallowed dust to rest
But wherever he wandered by night or day.
The thought Of the song wonld not away;
And whenever to slumbcr hfs head was laid,
He knelt to heaven and earnestly prayed.
That He who watches the lives OF men
Would bring to his car that song again.
The years passed on and his eyes grew dim,
And the scene Of his love lay far from him.
For he had wandered by .hore and sea.
Wherever the footsteps of meh may fee.
In cloud and sunshine, on every air
| He had breathed to Heaven his only prayer
Till the answer came, all soft and sweet
As unto his weary heart was meet,
Then faded away from HIS sight the strand
Where he laid him down in stranger land.
And rolled before him in lordIy pride
The swelling waves Of river wide.
Upon whose banks tall palm trees grew.
Which over the waters weird shadows threw.
I And beyond the tide, in the palm trees shade
Hesaw the form Of The long lost maid;
And over the wave. as it onward rolled,
| G ame the welcome sound Of tn anthem old,
As clear and high as when rose itschGe
| From the bright seaside in the summer time
Yet soft and sweet and as sad TO hear,
Asi was when the singers death was near.
Then misty shallop came lrom he shore
That he knew in bis heart was to bear him OIL
The beautiful wide and shining river,
Where the maid to his soul might sing forever
And when on his forehead the morn shone red
Kind strangers buried the wanderer. dead