A Pine-Tree Buoy

Where all the winds were tranquil, And all the odors sweet, And rings of tumbling upland Sloped down to kiss your feet: There, in a nest of verdure, You grew from bud to bough; You heard the song at mid-day,— At eve the plighted vow. But fate that gives a guerdon Takes back a double fee: She hewed you from your homestead And set you in the sea. And every bowling billow Bends down your barren head To hearken if the whisper Of what you knew is dead.

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