When autumn winds were driving
    Across the chafing bay,
He said the words of anger
    That wasted Ellen Ray:
He said the words of anger
    And went his bitter way:
Her dower was the darkness—
    The patient Ellen Ray.

Your comfort is a phantom,
    My patient Ellen Ray;
You house it in the night-time,
    It fronts you in the day;
And when the moon is very low
    And when the lights are grey,
You sit and hug a sorry hope,
    My patient Ellen Ray!

You sit and hug a sorry hope—
    Yet who will dare to say,
The sweetness of October
    Is not for Ellen Ray?
The bearer of a burden
    Must rest at fall of day;
And you have borne a heavy one,
    My patient Ellen Ray.