My Sorrow's Sign

O murmurous Spirit of the Pine!
Thou seem'st to droop and nestle nigh.
Hast thou, then, read my sorrow's sign?

What grief of thine dost thou resign
To echo here my soul's low cry,
O murmurous Spirit of the Pine?

What need for me to build a shrine
To stay the people passing by,
If thou hast read my sorrow's sign?

Thou hast no marble mark to thine;
Like mine, thy grief is always shy,
O murmurous Spirit of the Pine!

No shaft shall rise to measure mine,
Nor need the cold world marvel why,
Since thou hast read my sorrow's sign.

For mine, the stars shall rise and shine
Until the constellations die;
For thou hast read my sorrow's sign,
O murmurous Spirit of the Pine!

— JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS.


Learn Affliction's Lesson

If you would not have affliction visit you twice, listen at once to what it teaches. — JAMES BURGH.