In the Days When the World Was Wide, and Other Verses

The Song and the Sigh

 The creek went down with a broken song,
     'Neath the sheoaks high;
 The waters carried the song along,
     And the oaks a sigh.

 The song and the sigh went winding by,
     Went winding down;
 Circling the foot of the mountain high,
     And the hillside brown.

 They were hushed in the swamp of the Dead Man's Crime,
     Where the curlews cried;
 But they reached the river the self-same time,
     And there they died.

 And the creek of life goes winding on,
     Wandering by;
 And bears for ever, its course upon,
     A song and a sigh.