University of Virginia Library

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Joy is in Count Siegfried's bowers,
Joy upon those ancient towers,
Festal gladness in the room
Of that weight of brooding gloom;
Nor doth she whose presence bright
Chased the darkness of that night,
Bringing back return of light,
In this joy refuse her share:—
Yet another, holier care
Fills her heart—how best to keep
Those heights difficult and steep,
Which her spirit did attain
In its years of desert pain—
Him her pattern still to own,
Wearer of the thorny crown.
To the Count, as more he knows,
Ever loftier wonder grows
At her saintly virtues high—
Aye a sadder certainty,
That he will not long retain
His new-won and glorious gain.
She doth meekly undertake
All life's tasks for his dear sake;
Yet she evermore doth seem
Like one moving in a dream,
Or as one called back from death,
Strangely drawing vital breath;
All so wondrous does the stir
Of our life appear to her;
All so little to her mind
Can she now its pageants find.
And not many months have been,
Ere of every eye 'tis seen
That the hour is nearly come,
When the weary one will home;
Ere too plain the work appears
Of those cruel wasting years.
Every day her pale pale face
Wears a more unearthly grace:
Angel wings are o'er her head,
Angel feet about her bed:
She doth catch in trances high
Heaven's transcending harmony;
Enters by heaven's golden doors,
Treads upon heaven's sapphire floors,
And clear voices do not cease
Warning her of near release—
Sounds she may interpret well,
Wherefore sent, and what they tell;
Yet to him will not impart,
That she may not rend his heart:
For what anguish had they brought
To his soul, who well had thought
To atone that mighty wrong
By a life of service long,
By long years of service true
And devotion ever new—
But must now see torn and scattered,
By this stroke for ever shattered,
That fond vision, by whose art
He had many times in part
Spoken peace unto his heart.