  So heavenly beautiful it lay, It was less like a human corse Than that fair shape in which perforce A dead hope clothes itself alway. The dream shewed very plain: the bed Where that known unknown face reposed— A woman's face with eyelids closed, A something precious that was dead: A something, lost on this side life, By which the mourner came and stood, And laid down, ne'er to be renewed, All glittering robes of earthly strife;— Shred off, like votive locks of hair, Youth's ornaments of joy and strength, And cast them in their golden length The silence of that bier to share. No tears fell—but a gaze, fixed, long, That memory might print the face On the heart's ever-vacant space With a sun-finger, sharp and strong. Then kisses, dropping without sound; And solemn arms wound round the dead; And lifting from the natural bed Into the coffin's strange new bound; Yet still no parting—no belief In death; no more than we believe In some dread falsehood that would weave The world in one black shroud of grief. And still, unanswered kisses; still, Warm clingings to the image cold, With an impossible faith's close fold, Creative, through its fierce 'I will.' Hush, hush! the marble eyelids move; The kissed lips quiver into breath; Avaunt, thou ghastly-seeming Death! Avaunt! We are conquerors—I and Love! Corse of dead hope, awake, arise! A living hope, that only slept Until the tears thus overwept Had washed the blindness from our eyes. Come back into the upper day! Dash off those cerements! Patient shroud, We'll wrap thee as a garment proud Round the bright shape we thought was clay. Clasp, arms! Cling, soul! Eyes, drink anew, Like pilgrims at a living spring! Faith, that out-loved this perishing, May see this resurrection too. Printed and Published by W. and R. Chambers, High Street, Edinburgh. Also sold by W. S. Orr, Amen Corner, London; D. N. Chambers, 55 West Nile Street, Glasgow; and J. M'Glashan, 50 Upper Sackville Street, Dublin.—Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to Maxwell & Co., 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all applications respecting their insertion must be made. |
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