Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1875-08-13

THE LONGEST DEATH. WATCH.*
By MRS. s. NJ. B. PIATT.

ol hno. D. fus ID. IlAl L.
THE woman is picture now,
The Spanish suns have touched her face;
The coil of gold upon her brow
Shines back ON an imperial race
With most forlorn and bitter grace.
old palace lamps behind her burn,
The ermine molders on her train;
Her er-constant eyes still yearn
For one who came not back to Spain;
And dim and hollow is her brain.
One only thing she knew in life,
Four hundred ghostly years ago
That she was Flemish Philips wife:
Nor much beyond she cared to know;
Without voice she tells me so.
Philip the Beautiful-whose eyes
Might win a woman's heart, | fear,
Fen from his grave! "He will arise"
The monks had murmured by his bier.
"And reign once more among us here"
She heard their whisper, and forgot
CASTLE and Aragon, and all
Save Philip, who had loved her not;
The cruel darkness Of his pail
Seemed on an empty world to fall.
She took the dead man-to her sight
prince in deaths disguise, as fair
AS when his hayward smile would light
The throne he welded her to share
And followed, hardly knowing where.
Almost as dumb as he, she fled,
Pallid and wasted. toward the place
Where he, the princely promise said,
Must wait the hour when Gods sweet grace
Should breathe into his breathless face.
Once, when the night was weird with rain,
She sought converts shelter. When
The tapers showed yelled train
Of nuns, instead of cowled men,
She stole into the night again:
"These women, sainted though they be-"
She moaned through all her jealous mind,
care women still, and shall not see
Philip the Fair-though he is blind!
Favor with him yet shall find"
Then, with her piteous yearning wild:
"Unclose his coffin quick, pray"
Fiercely the sudden lightning smiled
When they had laid the lid away
Like scorn upon the regal clay.
She kissed the dead of many days,
AS though he were an hour asleep.
Dark men with swords to guard her way
Wept for her-but she did not weep;
She had her vigil left to keep.
They reached the appointed cloister. While
The heart of Philip whitening lay,
She, without moan, or tear, or smile,
Watched from her window, legends say
Watched seven and forty years away!
Winds blew the blossoms to and fro,
Into the world and out again:
Gle will come back to me, l know
Poor whisper of a wandering brain
To peerless patience, peerless pain.
All, longest, loneliest, saddest tryst
Was ever kept on earth And yet
Had he risen would he have kissed
The gray, wan woman he had met,
Or-taught her how the dead forget?
Could she have won, discrowned and old,
The love she could not win, in sooth,
When queenly purple, fold on fold.
And all the subtle grace of youth,
Helped her to hide hapless truth?
Did she not fancy-should she see
That coffin, watched so long, unclose-
The royal tenant there would be
Still young, still fair, when he arose,
Beside her withered leaves and SHOWS?
He would have laughed to breathe the tale
OF this crazed strangers love, fear,
Meath moon and rose and nightingale,
With courtly jewels glimmering near,
Into some lovely lady's ear.
Atlantic Monthly.
*Joanna, the wife of Philip the Handsome, was
the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, sister OF
Caiharine of ArapOn and mother of the Emperor