Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/281

Rh

, but she was gone. In her fair home, There lay her lute, just as she touch'd it last, At summer twilight, when the woodbine cups Fill'd with pure fragrance. On her favorite seat Lay the still open work-box, and that book Which last she read, its pencil'd margin mark'd By an ill-quoted passage,—trac'd, perchance, With hand unconscious, while her lover spake That dialect, which brings forgetfulness Of all beside. It was the cherish'd home, Where from her childhood, she had been the star Of hope and joy. I came,—and she was gone. Yet I had seen her from the altar led, With silvery veil but slightly swept aside, The fresh, young rose-bud deepening in her cheek, And on her brow the sweet and solemn thought Of one who gives a priceless gift away. And there was silence mid the gather'd throng. The stranger, and the hard of heart, did draw Their breath supprest, to see the mother's lip Turn ghastly pale, and the majestic sire Shrink as with smother'd sorrow, when he gave His darling to an untried guardianship, And to a far off clime. Haply his thought Travers'd the grass-grown prairies, and the shore Of the cold lakes; or those o'erhanging cliffs