SARAH HILDRETH BUTLER.
51
Is it the wind that round the house comes creeping?Is it your footfall on the polished stair?Strange visions in the mirrors gleam and go:Your smiles, your grief, your youth-renewing raptureIn her whose beauty dazzled half a world,Here, where so late you lived and loved, I capture,Despite the dart that destiny has hurled.Oh, answer me: where are you, if not here?Break the appalling silence round you furled;Say if your great flame fell, or burns it clearTo-night in some sublimer atmosphere!
VIII.
Alas! With you the whole earth somewhat faded,Turned from its path of sunshine, where the wayWith shadow of great mysteries was shaded;Some bloom forsook the skies, some charm the day;Some secret lost the song I paused to hear.
