When spring, to woods and wastes around, <br />Brought bloom and joy again, <br />The murdered traveller's bones were found, <br />Far down a narrow glen. <br /> <br />The fragrant birch above him hung <br />Her tassels in the sky; <br />And many a vernal blossom sprung, <br />And nodded careless by. <br /> <br />The red-bird warbled as he wrought <br />His hanging nest o'erhead, <br />And fearless, near the fatal spot, <br />Her young the partridge led. <br /> <br />But there was weeping far away; <br />And gentle eyes, for him, <br />With watching many an anxious day, <br />Were sorrowful and dim. <br /> <br />They little knew, who loved him so, <br />The fearful death he met, <br />When shouting o'er the desert snow, <br />Unarmed, and hard beset; <br /> <br />Nor how, when round the frosty pole <br />The northern dawn was red, <br />The mountain wolf and wildcat stole <br />To banquet on the dead; <br /> <br />Nor how, when strangers found the bones, <br />They dressed the hasty bier, <br />And marked his grave with nameless stones, <br />Unmoistened by a tear. <br /> <br />But long they looked, and feared, and wept, <br />Within his distant home; <br />And dreamed, and started as they slept, <br />For joy that he was come. <br /> <br />So long they looked; but never spied <br />His welcome step again, <br />Nor knew the fearful death he died <br />Far down that narrow glen.<br /><br />William Cullen Bryant<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-murdered-traveller/
