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| RELUCTANTLY I laid aside my smiles, | |
| Those little, pleasing knickknacks of the face, | |
| And dropped the words accustomed to my tongue, | |
| And took just half a breath in breathing’s space; | |
| And then I drew the curtains of my eyes | 5 |
| And ceased to move, and rallied all my thought, | |
| Selecting all the verity that lies | |
| Through daily life, with false pretences fraught; | |
| I sorted and arranged and packed my hope | |
| And my despair together, in my heart; | 10 |
| I tied the strings and sealed the envelope | |
| In which ambition, stifled, used to smart; | |
| Took out my conscience—long since laid away— | |
| And shook it, folded it, with thoughts like tears; | |
| Revised my errors, sorted out the years | 15 |
| When doubt and egotism held their sway; | |
| All this I did the night I heard them say | |
| Beside the pillow, “She will die at dawn”— | |
| And then they wept and called me by my name: | |
| I would have liked to soothe them, but in vain— | 20 |
| I had so very little time to stay, | |
| And so much packing to be done before | |
| I put my fires out and closed my door | |
| To catch the stage-coach which would pass that way | |
| At dawn, and bear me down eternity. | 25 |
| I hurried—and grew weary and turned weak— | |
| The time drew near,—oh, how I longed to speak | |
| And tell them I was sorry to have been | |
| So great a trouble; then a distant din, | |
| A muffled rumble, and the coach drew near; | 30 |
| One weary moment, it will soon be here! | |
| I sighed, and sank and dreamed myself away, | |
| And then “Thank God, thank God!” I heard them say, | |
| While with a pang, half wonderment, half pain, | |
| I woke—and found the coach had missed the train! | 35 |
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