University of Virginia Library

V
The Sleep.

He had threaded the wood;
He had paused in its utmost verge,
The verge where her dwelling stood;
And there had laid him to brood
In tune to the night-wind's dirge,
To the wail of midnight's mournfulest mood.
And there he slept
When the morning threw
Its fragrant shadows athwart the dew
And dried the tears that the roses had wept.
The tender light of the infant morn,
The light of a day just born,
Awoke from its cradle and touched his brow;
A day that never knew him till now
Parted the branches and touched and kist
More gently than kisses the frosted flake,
As though it loved the moment it wist.
It touched, but might not awake;
Alas! nor evil nor good,
That slumber may shake.
He sleeps
In the midst of the mighty brood
Who inhabit the unknown caves
Beneath eternity's deeps,
Beneath the mere whose ripples are graves.
He knows the slumber that wakes not,
He has entered the rest that breaks not.
His eyes, while gazing upon her home,
Where footstep of his might never come,
Had drooped and closed forever.
They saw the Eden forbid to him;
They saw—and then their sight was dim.
The heavens darkened, earth fell dumb.
The clock that striketh, “Forever! Never!”
Rang out. He passed eternity's brim.
Gone was the thought of gladness departed,
Gone the sorrow that slew;
And there he lay, the brave loving-hearted,
Love's Douglas, tender and true.