| |
| PUT every tiny robe away! | |
| The stitches all were set with tears, | |
| Slow, tender drops of joys; to-day | |
| Their rain would wither hopes or fears: | |
| Bitter enough to daunt the moth | 5 |
| That longs to fret this dainty cloth. | |
| |
| The filmy lace, the ribbons blue, | |
| The tracery deft of flower and leaf, | |
| The fairy shapes that bloomed and grew | |
| Through happy moments all too brief. | 10 |
| The warm, soft wraps. O God! how cold | |
| It must be in that wintry mould! | |
| |
| Fold carefully the broidered wool: | |
| Its silken wreaths will ne’er grow old, | |
| And lay the linen soft and cool | 15 |
| Above it gently, fold on fold. | |
| So lie the snows on that soft breast, | |
| Where mortal garb will never rest. | |
| |
| How many days in dreamed delight, | |
| With listless fingers, working slow, | 20 |
| I fashioned them from morn till night | |
| And smiled to see them slowly grow. | |
| I thought the task too late begun; | |
| Alas! how soon it all was done! | |
| |
| Go lock them in a cedar chest, | 25 |
| And never bring me back the key! | |
| Will hiding lay this ghost to rest, | |
| Or the turned lock give peace to me? | |
| No matter!—only that I dread | |
| Lest other eyes behold my dead. | 30 |
| |
| I would have laid them in that grave | |
| To perish too, like any weed; | |
| But legends tell that they who save | |
| Such garments, ne’er the like will need: | |
| But give or burn them,—need will be; | 35 |
| I want but one such memory! | |
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