| |
| “SHE sleeps! how long she sleeps! the sun hath sunk beneath the west, | |
| And risen twice, yet still she keeps that deep and placid rest. | |
| Why do they pass before me thus, her slumbering form to view? | |
| Come hither, brother, thou and I will gaze upon her too; | |
| But stay! we will not look there yet, but let us wait until | 5 |
| The midnight stars are beaming bright, and all around is still, | |
| Save when the moaning winds sweep by in whispers low and deep, | |
| And then together we will go and view her in her sleep.” | |
| |
| “Sister! tread softly! hark! that sound! ’t was but the midnight hour | |
| Tolling so harsh and heavily from yonder distant tower; | 10 |
| Come, sister, tremble not, ’t is true the time is lone and drear, | |
| And dimly burns the taper dark that sits beside the bier; | |
| But thou didst breathe a prayer to me, a whisper’d prayer but now, | |
| To come at midnight hour and gaze upon thy mother’s brow. | |
| This is the hour, and we have pass’d along the silent hall, | 15 |
| And thus, as by the dead we stand, I take away the pall— | |
| And here the coffin’s lid I move—and here I raise the veil— | |
| Turn, gentle sister, turn and look upon her features pale; | |
| Stoop down and kiss her pallid cheek—though cold and damp it be, | |
| It is the same which in thy mirth so oft was press’d by thee. | 20 |
| And clasp in thine the lifeless hand that lays upon her breast, | |
| Where pillow’d in thine infant years thou oft hast sunk to rest.” | |
| |
| “My eyes grow dim!—sweet brother, haste! and come with me away! | |
| Is this the form which once I loved! this ghastly thing of clay? | |
| They told me that she only slept—and that she still was fair, | 25 |
| As when upon her brow I used to part her raven hair. | |
| Is this my mother?—No, oh! no,—not this on which I ’ve gazed, | |
| Her eyes were bright like angel’s eyes, but these are fix’d and glazed, | |
| Her lips were smiling like the sky that never knew a cloud; | |
| But these are silent, closed and pale—pale as the winding shroud. | 30 |
| My eyes grow dim, sweet brother, haste and come with me away— | |
| No, this is not the form I loved—this ghastly thing of clay.” | |
| |
