Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/509

Rh He looked—was that pale woman,

So grave, so worn, so sad.

The child once young and smiling,

The bride once fair and glad?

What grief had dimmed that glory

And brought that dark eclipse

Upon her blue eyes' radiance,

And paled those trembling lips?

What memory of past sorrow,

What stab of present pain

Brought that deep look of anguish,

That watched the dismal rain?

That watched (with the absent spirit

That looks, yet does not see)

The dead and leafless branches

Upon the Judas Tree?

The slow, dark months crept onward

Upon their icy way.

Till April broke in showers

And Spring smiles forth in May,

Upon the apple-blossoms

The sun shone bright again,

When slowly up the highway

Came a long funeral train.

The bells tolled slowly, sadly,

For a noble spirit fled:

Slowly, in pomp and honor,

They bore the quiet dead.

Upon a black-plumed charger

One rode, who held a shield.

Where azure fleurs-de-lis and stars

Shone on a silver field.

'Mid all that homage given

To a fluttering heart at rest.

Perhaps an honest sorrow

Dwelt only in one breast.

One by the inn-door standing

Watched with fast-dropping tears

The long procession passing,

And thought of bygone years.

The boyish, silent homage

To child and bride unknown,

The pitying, tender sorrow

Kept in his heart alone.

Now laid upon the coffin

With a purple flower, might be

Told to the cold (load sleeper;

The rest could only see

A fragrant purple blossom

Plucked from a Judas Tree.