THE FETCH.

- Proofing in Progress -

The mother died when the child was born,
  And left me her baby to keep;
I rocked its cradle the night and morn,
  Or, silent, hung o'er it to weep.

'Twas a sickly child through its infancy,
  Its cheeks were so ashy pale;
Till it broke from my arms to walk in glee,
  Out in the sharp, fresh gale.

And then my little girl grew strong,
  And laughed the hours away;
Or sung me the merry lark's mountain song,
  Which he taught her at break of day.

When she wreathed her hair in thicket bowers,
  With the hedge-rose and harebell blue,
I called her my May, in her crown of flowers,
  And her smile so soft and new.

And the rose, I thought, never shamed her cheek,
  But rosy and rosier made it;
And her eye of blue did more brightly break
  Through the bluebell that strove to shade it.

One evening I left her asleep in her smiles,
  And walked through the mountains lonely;
I was far from my darling, ah!  many long miles,
  And I thought of her, and her only!

She darkened my path, like a troubled dream,
  In that solitude far and drear;
I spoke to my child!  but she did not seem
  To hearken with human ear.

She only looked with a dead, dead eye,
  And a wan, wan cheek of sorrow:
I knew her Fetch!--she was called to die,
  And she died upon the morrow.

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