| |
| SHE sat beside her lover, and her hand | |
| Rested upon his clay-cold forehead. Death | |
| Was calmly stealing o’er him, and his life | |
| Went out by silent flickerings, when his eye | |
| Woke up from its dim lethargy, and cast | 5 |
| Bright looks of fondness on her. He was weak, | |
| Too weak to utter all his heart. His eye | |
| Was now his only language, and it spake | |
| How much he felt her kindness, and the love | |
| That sat, when all had fled, beside him. Night | 10 |
| Was far upon its watches, and the voice | |
| Of nature had no sound. The pure blue sky | |
| Was fair and lovely, and the many stars | |
| Look’d down in tranquil beauty on an earth | |
| That smiled in sweetest summer. She look’d out | 15 |
| Through the raised window, and the sheeted bay | |
| Lay in a quiet sleep below, and shone | |
| With the pale beam of midnight—air was still, | |
| And the white sail, that o’er the distant stream | |
| Moved with so slow a pace, it seem’d at rest, | 20 |
| Fix’d in the glassy water, and with care | |
| Shunn’d the dark den of pestilence, and stole | |
| Fearfully from the tainted gale that breathed | |
| Softly along the crisping wave—that sail | |
| Hung loosely on its yard, and as it flapp’d, | 25 |
| Caught moving undulations from the light, | |
| That silently came down, and gave the hills, | |
| And spires, and walls, and roofs, a tint so pale, | |
| Death seem’d on all the landscape—but so still, | |
| Who would have thought that anything but peace | 30 |
| And beauty had a dwelling there! The world | |
| Had gone, and life was not within those walls, | |
| Only a few, who linger’d faintly on, | |
| Waiting the moment of departure; or | |
| Sat tending at their pillows, with a love | 35 |
| So strong it master’d fear—and they were few, | |
| And she was one—and in a lonely house, | |
| Far from all sight and sound of living thing, | |
| She watched the couch of him she loved, and drew | |
| Contagion from the lips that were to her | 40 |
| Still beautiful as roses, though so pale | |
| They seem’d like a thin snow-curl. All was still, | |
| And even so deeply hush’d, the low, faint breath | |
| That trembling gasp’d away, came through the night | |
| As a loud sound of awe. She pass’d her hand | 45 |
| Over those quivering lips, that ever grew | |
| Paler and colder, as the only sign | |
| To tell her life still linger’d—it went out! | |
| And her heart sank within her, when the last | |
| Weak sigh of life was over, and the room | 50 |
| Seem’d like a vaulted sepulchre, so lone | |
| She dared not look around: and the light wind, | |
| That play’d among the leaves and flowers that grew | |
| Still freshly at her window, and waved back | |
| The curtain with a rustling sound, to her, | 55 |
| In her intense abstraction, seem’d the voice | |
| Of a departed spirit. Then she heard, | |
| At least in fancy heard, a whisper breathe | |
| Close at her ear, and tell her all was done, | |
| And her fond loves were ended. She had watch’d | 60 |
| Until her love grew manly, and she check’d | |
| The tears that came to flow, and nerved her heart | |
| To the last solemn duty. With a hand | |
| That trembled not, she closed the fallen lid, | |
| And press’d the lips, and gave them one long kiss— | 65 |
| Then decently spread over all a shroud; | |
| And sitting with a look of lingering love | |
| Intense in tearless passion, rose at length, | |
| And pressing both her hands upon her brow, | |
| Gave loose to all her gushing grief in showers, | 70 |
| Which, as a fountain seal’d till it had swell’d | |
| To its last fulness, now gave way and flow’d | |
| In a deep stream of sorrow. She grew calm, | |
| And parting back the curtains, look’d abroad | |
| Upon the moonlight loveliness, all sunk | 75 |
| In one unbroken silence, save the moan | |
| From the lone room of death, or the dull sound | |
| Of the slow-moving hearse. The homes of men | |
| Were now all desolate, and darkness there, | |
| And solitude and silence took their seat | 80 |
| In the deserted streets, as if the wing | |
| Of a destroying angel had gone by, | |
| And blasted all existence, and had changed | |
| The gay, the busy, and the crowded mart | |
| To one cold, speechless city of the dead. | 85 |
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