| |
| THERE ’s a mossy, shady valley, | |
| Where the waters wind and flow, | |
| And the daisies sleep in winter, | |
| ’Neath a coverlid of snow; | |
| And violets, blue-eyed violets, | 5 |
| Bloom in beauty in the spring, | |
| And the sunbeams kiss the wavelets, | |
| Till they seem to laugh and sing. | |
| |
| But in autumn, when the sunlight | |
| Crowns the cedar-covered hill, | 10 |
| Shadows darken in the valley, | |
| Shadows ominous and still; | |
| And the yellow leaves like banners | |
| Of an elfin-host that ’s fled, | |
| Tinged with gold and royal purple, | 15 |
| Flutter sadly overhead. | |
| |
| And those shadows, gloomy shadows, | |
| Like dim phantoms on the ground, | |
| Stretch their dreamy lengths forever | |
| On a daisy-covered mound. | 20 |
| And I loved her, yes, I loved her, | |
| But the angels loved her, too, | |
| So she ’s sleeping in the valley, | |
| ’Neath the sky so bright and blue. | |
| |
| And no slab of pallid marble | 25 |
| Rears its white and ghastly head, | |
| Telling wanderers in the valley | |
| Of the virtues of the dead; | |
| But a lily is her tombstone, | |
| And a dew-drop, pure and bright, | 30 |
| Is the epitaph an angel wrote | |
| In the stillness of the night. | |
| |
| And I ’m mournful, very mournful, | |
| For my soul doth ever crave | |
| For the fading of the shadows | 35 |
| From that little woodland grave; | |
| For the memory of the loved one | |
| From my soul will never part, | |
| And those shadows in the valley | |
| Dim the sunshine of my heart. | 40 |
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