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BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE.
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Forth from the house: and, as her tears flowed fast,They gathered round. "What fortune shall we hear?To mourn indeed, if aught affect thy lord,We pardon thee: but, lives the lady yet,Or has she perished?—that we fain would know!"
"Call her dead, call her living, each style serves,"The matron said: "though grave-wards bowed, she breathed;Nor knew her husband what the misery meantBefore he felt it: hope of life was none:The appointed day pressed hard; the funeral pompHe had prepared too."When the friends broke out,"Let her in dying know herself at leastSole wife, of all the wives 'neath the sun wide,For glory and for goodness!"—"Ah, how else
