Francis S. Mahony

Pray for Me

Silent, remote, this hamlet seems—

            How hush’d the breeze! The eve how calm!

Light through my dying chamber beams,

            But hope comes not, nor healing balm.

Kind villagers! God bless your shed!

            Hark! ‘tis for prayer—the evening bell—

Oh, stay! And near my dying bed,

            Maiden, for me your rosary tell!

When leaves shall strew the waterfall,

            In the sad close of autumn drear,

Say, “The sick youth is freed from all

            The pangs and woe he suffered here.”

So may ye speak of him that’s gone;

            But when your belfry tolls my knell,

Pray for the soul of that lost one—

            Maiden, for me your rosary tell!

Oh! Pity her, in sable robe,

            Who to my grassy grave will come;

Nor seek a hidden wound to probe—

            She was my love!—point out my tomb;

Tell her my life should have been hers—

            ‘Twas but a day!—God’s will!—‘tis well:

But weep with her, kind villagers!

            Maiden, for me your rosary tell!

Note: From the French of Millevoy, written on his death-bed at Neuilly, Oct. 1820.