Poems (Odom)/Widowed
WIDOWED.
I have left you, oh! my darling, To your deep and quiet rest;The flowers sweetly breathing out Their beauty on your breast.With your long and curly lashes Sweeping down your marble cheek,And the seal of utter silence On the lips that cannot speak.
Now the pure, pale hands are folded, For their time for work is past,And the tired feet are resting From their weary walk at last.They have left me in the shadow That we feel but cannot see;For the mist of death has shrouded All your higher life from me.
When your steps grew faint and feeble, And your brow so strangely pale, Wearing even then the draping Of its soft immortal vail,Then I shrank away in terror From the bitter painful truth,Shutting out its presence even With the faith of early youth.
When your lips would sometimes whisper Over mine a breath of fear,That the change I so much dreaded For you, darling, was so near,Oh! I could not quite believe you, And I put aside your fears,—Bravely met your anxious glances With a smile and not with tears.
But my hope was slowly dying In my bosom day by day,When I saw the painful quiver Of your lips and heard you say:"The end is so much nearer, O my darling! than you think;I can see the rolling river With the flowers on its brink;
"I can almost see the boatman Plying now between the shores;I can hear the wimpling water And the plashing of the oars.I must leave our little children,— Leave you, O my precious wife!I can feel the slow, sad breaking Of the dearest ties of life."
But I fondly thought to hold you With a love so strong and trueThat the links it cast about you Even Fate could not undo;—Thought to keep your sun from setting Even when the twilight fell,And the night of death was stealing On your pathway like a spell.
Though the tide of life was failing, Failing in your bosom fast,Yet a hope and strength upheld me, Madly human to the last.And a sudden chilling darkness Wrapped the sad September day, When the warm and crimson fountain Of your being ceased to play.
I have stood to-day, my darling, Where the low green branches waveAbove the marble sentinel That watches by your grave.And where the boughs were bending down Above your sad, sweet rest,Some little birds had builded Such a dainty, pretty nest.
The shining sun of summer Came and crowned your sleeping clayLike a heavenly benediction As I sadly turned away;Your name upon the marble In the golden glory shone,Writing on my heart the record That I faced the world alone.