"My Vineyard which was Mine is behind Me"

"My Vineyard which was Mine is behind Me"

My vineyard lies behind me, and I toil

        Across the barren land;

My lips are parched and thirsty, and my feet

        Sink deep in burning sand.

If I could but remember as I go

        My vineyard-keeper’s face,

With that proud look which once for me it wore,

        So full of trust and grace!

But adding torture to each bleeding step,

        At night, at noon, at morn,

I see and see, shrink from it as I will,

        That one last look of scorn.

I think, perhaps, I could endure the thirst,

        The blistering sand and skies;

But O my God! spare me the supreme pain

        Of remembering those eyes.

A draft of "My Vineyard which was Mine is behind Me" on onionskin paper, courtesy of the Ella Higginson Papers, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Heritage Resources, Western Washington University, Bellingham WA.

"My Vineyard which was Mine is behind Me" appears in Ella Higginson's When the Birds Go North Again (1898), as well as in the February of 1894 issue of The New Peterson.