Part 8 (1/2)
”The time she passed, nor raised her eyes To hear me cry I would repent, Nor turned her head to hear my cries, But swifter went the way she went,--
”Went swift as youth, for all these years!
And this the strangest thing appears, That lady there seems just the same,-- Sweet Gladys-- Ah! you know her name?
”You hear her na so?
Why, boy, when I shall come to die That name shall be the last I know
”That name shall be the last sweet nahter than bright flame,-- That lady isbreath!
Ah, start and clutch your deadly knife!
If this be death, then be it death,-- But that loved lady is my wife!
”Yea, you are stunned! your face is white, That I should coht Froht me dead? You shake your head, You start back horrified to know That she is loved, that she is wed, That you have sinned in loving so
”Yet what seee, that lady there, Housed in the holy house of prayer, Seems just the same for all her tears,-- For all ht, to-night, Just twenty years this day, this hour, Since first I plucked that perfect flower, And not one witness of the rite
”Nay, do not doubt,--I tell you true!
Her prayers, her tears, her constancy Are all for ht for you!
”I knew, I knew she would be here This night of nights to pray for ht so certainly?
”Ah hts that ould drown Stick closer than a brother to The conscience, and pursue, pursue Like baying hound to hunt us down
”And then, that date is history; For on that night this shore was shelled, And many a noble mansion felled, With many a noble faht Of shells like stars tossed through the air To blow your hearth-stones--anywhere, That wild, illue befits you not so well: Why, you were but a babe at best, Your cradle some sharp bursted shell That tore, maybe, your mother's breast!
”Hear me! We came in honored war
The risen world was on your track!
The whole North-land was at our back, From Hudson's bank to the North star!
”And from the North to palm-set sea The splendid fiery cyclone swept
Your fathers fell, yourto the knee
”A wide and desolated track: Behind, a path of ruin lay; Before, so, clad in black
”Fro there Some tears came down like still small rain; Their own sons on the battle plain Were now but viewless ghosts of air