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TWO BROTHERS
My brother's face is turned from me;
He sees a thing I must not see,—
Alas! what may the vision be?
His form is wasted as with pain;
A fever feeds upon his brain
Whose fire, extinguished, burns again.
Sometimes he seems to hear a cry,—
And the ravens croak on the turrets nigh,
And the echoes shudder as they die.
Sometimes a cloud o'er his sight is cast,
And something viewless, whirling past,
Is borne away on the moaning blast.
And still his face is turned from me,
To hide the thing I must not see,—
Alas! what may the vision be?
········
Her lips apart, her blue eyes wide,
My mother lay in her state and pride,—
The fairest thing that yet had died!
