Presentiment

"Sister, you've sat there all the day,Come to the hearth awhile;The wind so wildly sweeps away,The clouds so darkly pile.That open book has lain, unread,For hours upon your knee;You've never smiled nor turned your head;What can you, sister, see?"

"Come hither, Jane, look down the field;How dense a mist creeps on!The path, the hedge, are both concealed,Ev'n the white gate is goneNo landscape through the fog I trace,No hill with pastures green;All featureless is Nature's face.All masked in clouds her mien.

"Scarce is the rustle of a leafHeard in our garden now;The year grows old, its days wax brief,The tresses leave its brow.The rain drives fast before the wind,The sky is blank and grey;O Jane, what sadness fills the mindOn such a dreary day!"

"You think too much, my sister dear;You sit too long alone;What though November days be drear?Full soon will they be gone.I've swept the hearth, and placed your chair.Our own fireside is never drear,Though late and wintry wane the year,Though rough the night may be."

"The peaceful glow of our firesideImparts no peace to me:My thoughts would rather wander wideThan rest, dear Jane, with thee.I'm on a distant journey bound,And if, about my heart,Too closely kindred ties were bound,'Twould break when forced to part.

"'Soon will November days be o'er:'Well have you spoken, Jane:My own forebodings tell me more--For me, I know by presage sure,They'll ne'er return again.Ere long, nor sun nor storm to meWill bring or joy or gloom;They reach not that EternityWhich soon will be my home."

Eight months are gone, the summer sunSets in a glorious sky;A quiet field, all green and lone,Receives its rosy dye.Jane sits upon a shaded stile,Alone she sits there now;Her head rests on her hand the while,And thought o'ercasts her brow.

She's thinking of one winter's day,A few short months ago,Then Emma's bier was borne awayO'er wastes of frozen snow.She's thinking how that drifted snowDissolved in spring's first gleam,And how her sister's memory nowFades, even as fades a dream.

The snow will whiten earth again,But Emma comes no more;She left, 'mid winter's sleet and rain,This world for Heaven's far shore.On Beulah's hills she wanders now,On Eden's tranquil plain;To her shall Jane hereafter go,She ne'er shall come to Jane!