trial--
How little she saw in her pride of prime
The dart of Death in the Hand of Time--
That hand which moved on the dial!

CCCXX.

As she went with her taper up the stair,
How little her swollen eye was aware
That the Shadow which followed was double!
Or when she closed her chamber door,
It was shutting out, and forevermore,
The world--and its worldly trouble.

CCCXXI.

Little she dreamt, as she laid aside
Her jewels--after one glance of pride--
They were solemn bequests to Vanity--
Or when her robes she began to doff,
That she stood so near to the putting off
Of the flesh that clothes humanity.

CCCXXII.

And when she quench'd the taper's light,
How little she thought as the smoke took flight,
That her day was done--and merged in a night
Of dreams and duration uncertain--
Or along with her own,
That a Hand of Bone
Was closing mortality's curtain!

CCCXXIII.

But life is sweet, and mortality blind,
And youth is hopeful, and Fate is kind
In concealing the day of sorrow;
And enough is the present tense of toil--
For this world is, to all, a stiffish soil--
And the mind flies back with a glad recoil
From the debts not due till to-morrow.

CCCXXIV.

Wherefore else does the Spirit fly
And bid its daily cares good-bye,
Along with its daily clothing?
Just as the felon condemn'd to die--
With a very natural loathing--
Leaving the Sheriff to dream of ropes,
From his gloomy cell in a vision elopes,
To a caper on sunny gleams and slopes,
Instead of a dance upon nothing.

CCCXXV.

Thus, even thus, the Countess slept,
While Death still nearer and nearer crept,
Like the Thane who smote the sleeping--
But her mind was busy with early joys,
Her golden treasures and golden toys;
That flash'd a bright
And golden light
Under lids still red with weeping.

CCCXXVI.

The golden doll that she used to hug!
Her coral of gold, and the golden mug!
Her godfather's golden presents!
The golden service she had at her meals,
The golden watch, and chain, and seals,
Her golden scissors, and thread, and reels,
And her golden fishes and pheasants!

CCCXXVII.

The golden guineas in silken purse--
And the Golden Legends she heard from her nurse
Of the Mayor in his gilded carriage--
And London streets that were paved with gold--
And the Golden Eggs that were laid of old--
With each golden thing
To the golden ring
At her own auriferou