Page:Pieces People Ask For.djvu/26

16 Oh, the morning is rosy as ever,
 * But the rose from her cheek is fled;

And the sunshine still is golden,
 * But it falls on a silvered head.

And the girlhood dreams, once vanished,
 * Come back in her winter-time,

Till her feeble pulses tremble
 * With the thrill of springtime's prime.

And, looking forth from the window,
 * She thinks how the trees have grown

Since, clad in her bridal whiteness,
 * She crossed the old door-stone.

Though dimmed her eye's bright azure,
 * And dimmed her hair's young gold,

The love in her girlhood plighted
 * Has never grown dim or old.

They sat in peace in the sunshine
 * Till the day was almost done.

And then, at its close, an angel
 * Stole over the threshold stone.

He folded their hands together,
 * He touched their eyelids with balm,

And their last breath floated outward,
 * Like the close of a solemn psalm.

Like a bridal pair they traversed
 * The unseen, mystical road

That leads to the Beautiful City
 * Whose Builder and Maker is God.

Perhaps in that miracle country
 * They will give her lost youth back,

And the flowers of the vanished springtime
 * Will bloom in the spirit's track.

One draught from the living waters
 * Shall call back his manhood's prime;

And eternal years shall measure
 * The love that outlasted time.