On A Wife's Death

(See Note 55)          With death's dark eye acquainted she had been made ere this,     When to her son, her first-born, she gave the farewell kiss,     And when afar she hastened beside her mother's bed,     It followed all her faring with warning fraught and dread;     It filled her with foreboding when standing by the bier:     More sheaves to gather hopeth the harvester austere.     So soon she saw her husband, that man of strength, succumb,     She said with sorrow stricken: I knew that it would come!"     She thought that he was chosen by God from earth to go,     Would check, her hands upthrusting, the harsh behest of woe;     And with her slender body, too weak for such a strife,     Would ward her gallant consort, - and gave for him her life.      She smiled, serene and blissful, as death's dark eye she braved;     Her sacrifice was given, her heart's proud hero saved.     Our love and admiration lifted a starry dome     Of happiness above her in life's last hour of gloam,     And snow-white pure she passed then to her eternal home.     Such tender love and holy to heaven's bounds can bear     The souls that it embraces in sacrifice and prayer.