“Dying? You do but jest!
You smile in the dark, I know!
Surely I should know best
How the quick pulses go.
Lay your hand on my cheek:
Feel, though you see not, the red.
Why, in another week,
I shall have left my bed!
“It was being so long alone—
So sick of the world’s vain strife,
Uncared for, and unknown,
That sapp’d the springs of life!
You have given a world of love:
Nay, soften that anxious brow;
Is not our God above?
He will not summon me now.
“The summer is coming fast;
I can scent the rich perfume
Of the lilac by the door,
And the delicate apple-bloom.
Where shall our year be spent?
I long for the hills of Spain—
We will go to Rome, for Lent,
Then back to our home again.
“O, what is this sudden pang?
Is it growing darker, Will?
Heavily goes my heart,—
It is almost standing still!
Raise me—I cannot breathe—
Pray for me, love,” she said.
“Father, into Thy hands!”
And my young wife was dead.