Then slowly she went from them,
Went down the staircase grim,
With trembling heart and limb;
Her footfalls echoed
In the silence vast and dead,
Like the notes of a requiem,
Not sung, but uttered.
For a little way and a black
She groped as grope the blind,
Then a sudden radiance shined,
And a vision her eyelids burned;
All joyfully she turned,
For a moment turned she back,
And smiled at those behind.
There in the shadows drear
An angel sat serene,
Of grave and tender mien,
With whitest roses crowned;
A scythe lay on the ground,
As reaping-time were near,--
A burnished scythe and a keen.
She did not start or pale
As the angel rose and laid
His hand on hers, nor said
A word, hut beckoned on;
For a glorious meaning shone
On the lips that told no tale,
And she followed him, unafraid.
Her friends wept for a space;
Then one said: "Be content;
Surely some good is meant
For her, our Beautiful,--
Some glorious good and full.
Did you not see her face,
Her dear smile, as she went?"
A LONELY MOMENT.
I sit alone in the gray,
The snow falls thick and fast,
And never a sound have I heard all day
But the wailing of the blast,
And the hiss and click of the snow, whirling to and fro.
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