University of Virginia Library

XI

Gently speak and lightly tread,
'Tis the chamber of the dead:
Now thine earthly course is run,
Now thy weary day is done,
Genoveva, sainted one!
Happy flight thy sprite has taken,
From its plumes earth's last dust shaken;
On the earth is passionate weeping,
Round thy bier lone vigils keeping,—
In the heaven triumphant songs,
Welcome of angelic throngs,
As thou enterest on that day,
Which no tears nor fears allay,
No regrets nor pangs affray,
Hemmed not in by yesterday,
By to-morrow hemmed not in.
Weep not for her—she doth win
What we long for; now is she
That which all desire to be.
Bear her forth with solemn cheer,
Bear her forth on open bier,
That the wonder which hath been
May of every eye be seen.
Wonderful! that pale worn brow
Death hath scarcely sealed, and now
All the beauty that she wore
In the youthful years before,
All the freshness and the grace,
And the bloom upon her face,
Ere that seven-yeared distress
In the painful wilderness,
Ere that wasting sickness came,
Undermining quite her frame,
All come back—the light, the hue
Tinge her cheek and lip anew:
Far from her, oh! far away,
All that is so quick to say,
‘Man returneth to his clay:’
All that to our creeping fear
Whispers of corruption near.
Seems it as she would illume
With her radiance and her bloom
The dark spaces of the tomb.