lank prospect, void of all but dread,
Void as any tomb,
My soul has left; and by a lonely bed,
In a girl's sick room,
Hangs there expectant of her parting breath,
The silent voice of doom, the stroke of death.

PART THE SECOND.

I. MY LADY IN DEATH.

All is but coloured show. I look
Into the green light shed
By leaves above my head,
And feel its inmost worth forsook
My being, when she died.
This heart, now hot and dried,
Halts, as the parched course where a brook
Mid flowers was wont to flow,
Because her life is now
No more than stories in a printed book.

Grass thickens proudly o'er that breast,
Clay-cold and sadly still,
My happy face felt thrill.
How much her dear, dear mouth expressed!
And now are closed and set
Lips which my own have met!
Her eyelids by the damp earth pressed!
Damp earth weighs on her eyes;
Damp earth shuts out the skies.
My Lady rests her heavy, heavy rest.

To see her high perfection sweep
The favoured earth, as she
With welcoming palms met me!
How can I but recall and weep?
Her hands' light charm was such,
Care vanished at their touch.
Her feet spared little things that creep;
"For stars are not," she'd say,
"More wonderful than they."
And now she sleeps her heavy, heavy sleep.

Immortal hope shone on that brow,
Above whose waning forms
Go softly real worms.
Surely it was a cruel blow
Which cut my Darling's life
Sharply, as with a knife;
I hate my own that lets me grow
As grows a bitter root
From which rank poisons shoot
Upon the grave where she is lying low.

Ah, hapless fate! Could it be just,
That her young life should play
Its easy, natural way;
Then, with an unexpected thrust,
Be hence thus rudely sent;
Even as her feelings blent
With those around, whose love would trust
Her willing power to bless,
For all their happiness?
Alone she moulders into common dust.

Small birds twitter and peck the weeds
That wave above this bed
Where my dear Love lies dead:
They flutter and burst the globed seeds,
And beat the downy pride
Of dandelions, wide:
From speargrass, bowed with watery beads,
The wet uniting, drips
In sparkles off the tips:
In mallow bloom the wild bee drops and feeds.

No more she hears, where vines adorn
Her window, on the boughs
Birds chirrup an arouse:
Flies, buzzing, strengthening with the morn,
She will not