A simple-hearted child was He,
And He was nothing more;
In summer days, like you and me,
He played about the door,
Or gathered, where the father toiled.
The shavings from the floor.
Sometimes He lay upon the grass,
The same as you and I,
And saw the hawks above Him pass
Like specks against the sky;
Or,...
The long, gray moss that softly swings
In solemn grandeur from the trees,
Like mournful funeral draperies,—
A brown-winged bird that never sings.
A shallow, stagnant, inland sea,
Where rank swamp grasses wave, and where
A deadliness lurks in the air,—
A sere leaf falling silently.
The death-like calm on every...
