Page:The American fugitive in Europe.djvu/288

280 "We watched her breathing through the night,

Her breathing soft and low,

As in her breast the wave of life

Kept heaving to and fro.

"So silently we seemed to speak,

So slowly moved about,

As we had lent her half our powers

To eke her living out.

"Our very hopes belied our fears,

Our fears our hopes belied;

We thought her dying when she slept,

And sleeping when she died.

"For when the morn came dim and sad,

And chill with early showers , Her quiet eyelids closed—she had

Another morn than ours."

Thomas Hood has another morn; may that morn have brightened into perfect day! It is well known that the poet died almost on the verge of starvation. Being seized, long before his death, with a malady that kept him confined to his bed the greater part of the time, he became much embarrassed. Still, in defiance of anguish and weakness, he toiled on, until nature could endure no more. Many of Hood's humorous pieces were written upon a sick bed, and taken out and sold to the publishers, that his family might have bread. Little did those who laughed over these comical sayings think of the pain that it cost the poet to write them. And, now that he is gone, we often hear some one say, "Poor Hood!" But