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| O FRIEND, like some cold wind to-day | |
| Your message came, and chilled the light; | |
| Your house so dark, and mine so bright,— | |
| I could not weep, I could not pray! | |
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| My wife and I had kissed at morn, | 5 |
| My children’s lips were full of song; | |
| O friend, it seemed such cruel wrong, | |
| My life so full, and yours forlorn! | |
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| We slept last night clasped hand in hand, | |
| Secure and calm—and never knew | 10 |
| How fared the lonely hours with you, | |
| What time those dying lips you fanned. | |
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| We dreamed of love, and did not see | |
| The shadow pass across our dream; | |
| We heard the murmur of a stream, | 15 |
| Not death’s for it ran bright and free. | |
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| And in the dark her gentle soul | |
| Passed out, but oh! we knew it not! | |
| My babe slept fast within her cot, | |
| While yours woke to the slow bell’s toll. | 20 |
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| She paused a moment,—who can tell?— | |
| Before our windows, but we lay | |
| So deep in sleep she went away, | |
| And only smiled a sad farewell! | |
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| It would be like her; well we know | 25 |
| How oft she waked while others slept— | |
| She never woke us when she wept, | |
| It would be like her thus to go! | |
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| Ah, friend! you let her stray too far | |
| Within the shadow-haunted wood, | 30 |
| Where deep thoughts never understood | |
| Breathe on us and like anguish are. | |
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| One day within that gloom there shone | |
| A heavenly dawn, and with wide eyes | |
| She saw God’s city crown the skies, | 35 |
| Since when she hasted to be gone. | |
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| Too much you yielded to her grace; | |
| Renouncing self, she thus became | |
| An angel with a human name, | |
| And angels coveted her face. | 40 |
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| Earth’s door you set so wide, alack | |
| She saw God’s gardens, and she went | |
| A moment forth to look; she meant | |
| No wrong, but oh! she came not back! | |
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| Dear friend, what can I say or sing, | 45 |
| But this, that she is happy there? | |
| We will not grudge those gardens fair | |
| Where her light feet are wandering. | |
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| The child at play is ignorant | |
| Of tedious hours; the years for you | 50 |
| To her are moments: and you too | |
| Will join her ere she feels your want. | |
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| The path she wends we cannot track: | |
| And yet some instinct makes us know | |
| Hers is the joy, and ours the woe,— | 55 |
| We dare not wish her to come back! | |
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