Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

IN the long, sleepless watches of the night,

A gentle face—the face of one long dead—

Looks at me from the wall, where round its head

The night lamp casts a halo of pale light.

Here in this room she died; and soul more white

Never through martyrdom of fire was led

To its repose; nor can in books be read

The legend of a life more benedight.

There is a mountain in the distant West

That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines

Displays a cross of snow upon its side.

Such is the cross I wear upon my breast

These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes

And seasons, changeless since the day she died.