STANZAS (3) by ELIZA COOK

I've tracked the paths of the dark wild wood,
No footfall there but my own;
I've lingered beside the moaning flood,
But I never felt alone.
There were lovely things for my soul to meet,
Rare work for my eye to trace:
I held communion close and sweet
With a Maker -- face to face.

I have sat in the cheerless, vacant room,
At the stillest hour of night,
With naught to break upon the gloom
But the taper's sickly light;
And there I have conjured back again
The loved ones, lost and dead,
Till my swelling heart and busy brain
Have hardly deemed them fled.

I may rove the waste or tenant the cell,
But alone, I never shall be,
While this form is a home where the spirit may dwell,
There is something to mate with me.
Wait till you turn from my mindless clay,
And the shroud o'er my breast is thrown,
And then, but not till then, ye may say,
That I am left alone!

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