Last Petition

Upon her mother’s bosom lay Young Mira, and she pined away. ’T was in her own maternal shed; And thus the anxious mother said:— “What ails thee, tell me, Mira! pray?”

“O ask me not, my mother dear! I feel that death approaches near; I shall not rise from this my bed; But, mother mine! when I am dead— O mother mine! call round me all My playmates to my funeral: And let the friends I loved receive The little gifts that I shall leave; Then let me sleep in peace beneath.— There’s one, my mother, I should grieve To be divided from in death. Then call around me priests divine, And pious pilgrims, mother mine! The forehead of thy dying daughter Steep in the rose’s fragrant water. And, mother, let my forehead be Dried with the rose-leaves from the tree; And pillow not thy daughter’s head, O mother! with the common dead; But let me have a quiet tomb Adjacent to my Mirjo’s home, And near my Mirjo’s nightly bed; So when he wakes his thoughts shall dwell With her he loved, and loved so well.”