Classic Poem

'T WAS in the autumn's dreary close,
A long, long time ago:
The berries of the brier-rose
Hung bright above the snow,
And night had spread a shadow wild
About the earth and sky,
When, calling me her orphan child,
She said that she must die.

She rests within the quiet tomb,
The narrow and the chill —
The window of our cabin home
Looks out upon the hill.
Oh, when the world seems wild and wide,
And friends to love me few,
I think of how she lived and died,
And gather strength anew.