The forest minstrel :: :: University of Virginia Library

I dreamed—
And lo, I lay upon the bed of pain,
In bitter agony; a torturing fire
Of fever scorched my brain and dimmed mine eyes,
Though on my forehead lay big icy drops;
I would have wiped them, and I raised my hand,
But it was powerless, white, and cold as snow.

Each pulse was but a throb of agony,
As painfully I felt life's crimson tides
Curdling along their channels. Heavily
My heart was beating, and my tongue lay cold
And languid in the hall of melody.
My soul was suffocating, and I felt
Impatience of the close and narrow room,
That seemed to shut out the sweet breath of life.
My children wept all wildly round my bed,
With broken supplication unto God,
That he would spare a life so dear to them;
But I was weary of it, and my prayer,
Wrung out by agony, was, “Let me rest!”

I knew that death was present, and I ceased
To struggle with him, and the conqueror pressed
His icy hand upon my shuddering heart,
And tore away the life-strings.

Then I lay
A spiritual essence on the air,—
A balm, a beauty, an ecstatic bliss,
Living in its own wealth of blessedness.

I looked upon the clay that had so long
Held me a prisoner. Where were now the pangs
That wrung its nerves? Oh mystery of death!
All calmly beautiful in its pale sleep,
It lay before me. Death, which lay concealed
In its first germ, which all its weary life
Had dwelt within it, gnawing at its heart,
And thrilling it with pangs, and dire disease,
And slow decay, weakness, anxiety,
And tears, and sighing, so that all its joys
Were mixed with agony;—Death now was dead;
And that calm clay and the immortal mind
Were freed from him for ever.
Then I looked
Upon my weepers, in their bitterness
Clinging round that cold clay, or sobbing deep
Upon each other's neck; and yet I felt
No sympathy; not for my tenderest child;
But said, with placid joy, “If ye could know
What peace, what bliss is mine, ye would not weep.”