Page:Poems, Volume 1, Coates, 1916.djvu/75



OFTLY, with palpitating heart,

She came to where he lay concealed apart.

The lamp she held intensified the gloom

And in the dusk wrought shadowy shapes of doom.

Her starry eyes

O'er-brimmed with troubled tears,

Her pulses throbbing wildly in her ears,

She stood beside him where he lay,

Hushed in the deep

Of sweet, unconscious sleep.

But as she stifled back her sighs

And tried to look upon that cherished form,

Remembrance shook her purpose warm,

And, chiding, seemed to say,—

"Why seek to solve, why, curious, thus destroy

The mystery of joy?

What doubt unblest, what faithless fear is this

That tempts to paths none may retrace,

That moves thee, fond one! to unveil the face

Of bliss?