Page:Poems Terry, 1861.djvu/140

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THE SUTTEE.
Come, thou dead image, to thy rest!
The flashing embers wait for thee,
And heaped above my panting breast
Lie faggots fit thy couch to be.

I know thee now, cold shape of clay,
Whose life was but a thrill from mine!—
One gasp, and undeceiving day
Showed the base thing no more divine.

Lo! I have framed a costly pyre;
There lie those dreams with wandering eyes,
And hopes, too ashen now for fire,
Strew pathways to the sacrifice.

I am a widow, and shall I
Linger a living death away?
Here on the dead, I, too, will die,
Quick! lest the flesh refuse to stay.