My days were dim in the shadow cast,

By the memory of the same!

Day and night, day and night,

He was my breath and life and light,

For three short years, which soon were past.

On the fourth, my gentle mother

Led me to the shrine, to be

His sworn bride eternally.

"And now we stood on the altar stair,

When my father came from a distant land,

And with a loud and fearful cry
Rushed between us suddenly.

I saw the stream of his thin grey hair,

I saw his lean and lifted hand,

And heard his words,-and live! Oh God!
Wherefore do I live?- Hold, hold !'

He cried, 'I tell thee 'tis her brother!

Thy mother, boy, beneath the sod

Of

yon church-yard rests in her shroud so cold:

I am now weak, and pale, and old:

We were once dear to one another,

I and that corpse! Thou art our child!'
Then with a laugh both long and wild
The youth upon the pavement fell :
They found him dead! All looked on me,
The spasms of my despair to see:
But I was calm. I went away:
I was clammy-cold like clay!
I did not weep: I did not speak :
But day by day, week after week,
I walked about like a corpse alive!
Alas! sweet friend, you must believe
This heart is stone: it did not break.

My father lived a little while,

But all might see that he was dying,
He smiled with such a woful smile!
When he was in the church-yard lying
Among the worms, we grew quite poor,
So that no one would give us bread :
My mother looked at me, and said
Faint words of cheer, which only meant
That she could die and be content;

So I went forth from the same church door

To another husband's bed.

And this was he who died at last,

When weeks and months and years had past,

Through which I firmly did fulfil

My duties, a devoted wife,

With the stern step of vanquished will,

Walking beneath the night of life,

Whose hours extinguished, like slow rain

Falling for ever, pain by pain,

The very hope of death's dear rest;

Which, since the heart within my breast

Of natural life was dispossest,

It's strange sustainer there had been.

When flowers were dead, and grass was green

Upon my mother's grave,-that mother

Whom to outlive, and cheer, and make

My wan eyes glitter for her sake,

Was my vowed task, the single care

Which once gave life to my despair,

When she was a thing that did not stir
And the crawling worms were cradling her
To a sleep more deep and so more sweet
Than a baby's rocked on its nurse's knee,
I lived a living pulse then beat
Beneath my heart that awakened me.
What was this pulse so warm and free?
Alas! I knew it could not be

My own dull blood: 'twas like a thought
Of liquid love, that spread and wrought
Under my bosom and in my brain,

And crept with the blood through every vein;

And hour by hour, day after day,

The wonder could not charm away,

But laid in sleep, my wakeful pain,
Until I knew it was a child,

And then I wept. For long, long years
These frozen eyes had shed no tears :
But now-'twas the season fair and mild
When April has wept itself to May:
I sate through the sweet sunny day

By my window bowered round with leaves,
And down my cheeks the quick tears ran
Like twinkling rain-drops from the eaves,
When warm spring showers are passing o'er:
O Helen, none can ever tell
The joy it was to weep once more!

I wept to think how hard it were
To kill my babe, and take from it
The sense of light, and the warm air,
And my own fond and tender care,
And love and smiles; ere I knew yet
That these for it might, as for me.
Be the masks of a grinning mockery.

And haply, I would dream, 'twere sweet

To feed it from my faded breast,

Or mark my own heart's restless beat

Rock it to it's untroubled rest,

And watch the growing soul beneath

Dawn in faint smiles; and hear its breath,

Half interrupted by calm sighs,