This, that and the other :: :: University of Virginia Library

Dim, struggling sunbeams of the dawn
Keep with the clouds a funeral tryst;
A long, blue line lies slant across
The whiteness of the morning's mist;
With solemn monodies of birds
The air is tremulous the while,
As when, from hollow organ-pipes,
A moan floats through the old church-aisle!
And 'mid thick boughs of branching trees,
Where spring-buds cannot struggle through,
I tread beneath my listless feet
The crisp grass, bended o'er with dew.
A dirge, as of unnumbered bells,
Is ringing, painful, in my ears;
Around my heart, in choking tide,
Surge sullen baptism-waves of tears.
What time the sweet spring-days grew long,
Beneath the last year's mellow rays,
Our fond hearts echoed back her song,
Our voices trembled to her praise.

When starlights from her meek brown eyes
Illumined all our spirit's night,
Our pains, like crowns of thorns, fell down,
And hopes sprang up from hopeless blight.
What time she braided up her hair
With summer buds and bands of flowers,
It was as if some saint had shed
Heaven's light on this dim world of ours;
And, kneeling where her feet had trod,
We watched to see the glory break,
When angel fingers, at the dawn,
Heaven's portals opened for her sake!
She was too good, we said, and fair,
To dwell in this cold world of pain,
And yet, we never dared to think
Her own might beckon her again.
All the pale winter that is gone,
Our life knew neither shade nor fear;
'T was bathed in love's serenest light,
From those brown eyes, so heavenly dear.
But, in the twilights of the spring,
The angels whispered to her soul;
In sweet and pleasant symphony,
She heard heaven's tide of anthems roll;
And, putting from her forehead pale
The scarcely faded bridal crown,
In the dim twilight of white death
The young day of her life went down.

And grief sits brooding in our hearts;
For sweet spring time, and summer heat,
And autumn winds, that viewless tread
The hill-side with their homeless feet,
But breathe to us of sweet hopes changed,
Of fond hearts breaking, young life fled;
And earth seems but a mighty grave,
Where lonesome voices wail the dead!