Page:The letters of William Blake (1906).djvu/104

 46 are departed to His heavenly bosom. A cry is heard, a voice of joy is sounding in the streets. The bereaved widow has found a husband and the fatherless family a trustworthy friend: touch not their little ones, trample not upon their borders, break not down their hedges, for their friend is a strong foe and their defender a mighty man. She suffered the remains of her dear husband to leave the house and went through the awful day of separation with a fortitude nearly unprecedented and a courage by no means to be expected. She who afterwards fretted herself, pining like Rachel for her little ones, into a grave ere long to be inhabited by that temple of obedience, those hands of unwearied labour, and those limbs of constant exercise, set out herself the refreshments of the funeral, saw with her own eye the last offices of concealment, and parted with him with a smile.

The widow losing her husband so constantly in her company, so continually by her side, was no common circumstance in her days. She who during a marriage of more than forty years never parted with him, save for a period that would make altogether about five weeks, who soothed and in return was cherished, who waited upon and in return was protected, found this trial too great to be endured as a trivial calamity; it