Poems (Odom)/Widowed

WIDOWED.

I have left you, oh! my darling,
To your deep and quiet rest;
The flowers sweetly breathing out
Their beauty on your breast.
With your long and curly lashes
Sweeping down your marble cheek,
And the seal of utter silence
On the lips that cannot speak.

Now the pure, pale hands are folded,
For their time for work is past,
And the tired feet are resting
From their weary walk at last.
They have left me in the shadow
That we feel but cannot see;
For the mist of death has shrouded
All your higher life from me.

When your steps grew faint and feeble,
And your brow so strangely pale,
Wearing even then the draping
Of its soft immortal vail,
Then I shrank away in terror
From the bitter painful truth,
Shutting out its presence even
With the faith of early youth.

When your lips would sometimes whisper
Over mine a breath of fear,
That the change I so much dreaded
For you, darling, was so near,
Oh! I could not quite believe you,
And I put aside your fears,—
Bravely met your anxious glances
With a smile and not with tears.

But my hope was slowly dying
In my bosom day by day,
When I saw the painful quiver
Of your lips and heard you say:
"The end is so much nearer,
O my darling! than you think;
I can see the rolling river
With the flowers on its brink;

"I can almost see the boatman
Plying now between the shores;
I can hear the wimpling water
And the plashing of the oars.
I must leave our little children,—
Leave you, O my precious wife!
I can feel the slow, sad breaking
Of the dearest ties of life."

But I fondly thought to hold you
With a love so strong and true
That the links it cast about you
Even Fate could not undo;—
Thought to keep your sun from setting
Even when the twilight fell,
And the night of death was stealing
On your pathway like a spell.

Though the tide of life was failing,
Failing in your bosom fast,
Yet a hope and strength upheld me,
Madly human to the last.
And a sudden chilling darkness
Wrapped the sad September day,
When the warm and crimson fountain
Of your being ceased to play.

I have stood to-day, my darling,
Where the low green branches wave
Above the marble sentinel
That watches by your grave.
And where the boughs were bending down
Above your sad, sweet rest,
Some little birds had builded
Such a dainty, pretty nest.

The shining sun of summer
Came and crowned your sleeping clay
Like a heavenly benediction
As I sadly turned away;
Your name upon the marble
In the golden glory shone,
Writing on my heart the record
That I faced the world alone.