Eliza's Hair

Let the tale be told of Eliza’s hair,
Lying in the oaken box over there,
Burned past the point of repair
Yet there is no one left to care

Strip away Time’s silkscreen,
The old cabin would fall beneath,
To reveal a field filled with summer’s sheen,
Across flowing a singing stream
Where once a backwoods boy met a maid green
Twas the year 1817

She told him,
I’ll give you a lock of my hair,
If you promise never to leave
And forever to care

He kept it in a store-box gladly,
But his mother said madly,
I’ll throw it in the flame,
If that should teach you shame

When they met by the stream that day
The waters were laughing with the swooning hay
The sun was mid-risen over the field,
Illuminating the tracks of the wagon wheels
They followed to see what the west would yield

They lost their tread
Before the sunset sky turned red
Somewhere beyond the northern way
Right when a mountain snowstorm
Suffocated the skies with a dreary gray

Far away from home,
In the cold all alone
They died there,
Beneath the stars,
Bound to be buried
Under stones unmarked


Far away from the glittering fright
That the firelight
Of the burning box
Struck into the darkness of the solemn night

To those who asked
His mother would say,
He went off with some lass
What her name was, I cannot remember
Twenty summers have passed

So ends the tale of Eliza’s hair,
Still sitting in the scorched oaken box
Lying in the fireplace of an abandoned lair