On A Wife's Death

With death's dark eye acquainted she had been made ere this, When to her son, her first-born, she gave the farewell kiss, And when afar she hastened beside her mother's bed, It followed all her faring with warning fraught and dread; It filled her with foreboding when standing by the bier: More sheaves to gather hopeth the harvester austere. So soon she saw her husband, that man of strength, succumb, She said with sorrow stricken: « I knew that it would come!' She thought that he was chosen by God from earth to go, Would check, her hands upthrusting, the harsh behest of woe; And with her slender body, too weak for such a strife, Would ward her gallant consort,-and gave for him her life. She smiled, serene and blissful, as death's dark eye she braved; Her sacrifice was given, her heart's proud hero saved. Our love and admiration lifted a starry dome Of happiness above her in life's last hour of gloam, And snow-white pure she passed then to her eternal home. Such tender love and holy to heaven's bounds can bear The souls that it embraces in sacrifice and prayer.