THE FATAL ARROW.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 75, 17 July 1869, Page 6

THE FATAL ARROW.

(From the "Atlantic Monthly.") My father had a fair-haired harvester ; I gleaned behind him in the barley-land ; And there he put a red rose in my hand : O cruel, killing leaves those rose-leaves were ! He sang to me a little lovelorn lay, Learned of some bird ; and while his sickle swept Athwart the shining stalks, my wild heart kept Beating the tone up with him all the way. One time we rested by a limpid stream, O'erwhichtheloose-toTiguedwillo-wswhispered Ah tlessed hour ! so long ar.d long ago, It cometh back upon me like a dream. And there he told me, blushing soft— ah me !— Of one that he could love,— so young, so fain Like mine the'colour of her eyes and hair : O foolish heart ! I thought that I was she. Pull flowed his manly beard j his eyes so Wwn Made sweet confession with tlieir tender look > A thousand times I kissed them in the brook, Across the flowers,— with bashful eyelids down. And even yet I cannot hear the stir Of willows by a water buW stop, And down the warm waves all then- length I drop My empty arms, to find my harvester, In all his speech there was no word to mend ; "Whate'er he said, or right or wrong, was best, Until at last an arrow pierced my breast, Tipt with a fatal point— he called me friend I Still next my heart the fading rose I wore, But all so sad ; full well I knew, God wot, That I had been in love and he had not, A»<l in the barley-field I gleaned no mote. 1