The Bride.

Her bridal dawn! her heart was fed Last night with eerie food, As, one by one, her lovers dead Came in the solitude, And shared the last sad feast with her In Beauty's grave, as if it were To-morrow, white and cold, The ghost of all that she had been Would pass away for e'er, as e'en Their dreams had died of old. Each, with his sigil of despair, Moved in the eerie room, For all were cognisant (as e'er All are beyond the tom That one night more the virgin tie Which had bound them would be put by, As she felt passion's stir Throb in her maidenhood, until All that she was, for good and ill, Became a dream to her. And so with mystic eyes and ears They came to say good-bye, Who had been her bright girlhood's peers And knew e'en love must die — That it must be a shadow, too, As life had long been in the blue And golden light above; And as each pledged her in the dim Remoteness, there came over him The last desire of love.