Los Angeles herald., 1909-04-11
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the old wife seemed to be the only heart mourner. 1t
is respectful for his friends to be sad few moments,
till the service is performed and the hearse is out
of sight. 1t is very proper and suitable for chill
dren, who have outgrown the fervency and affection
of youth, to shed tears when aged parent says
farewell and lies down to quiet sumber. Some
regrets recollection of the past transitory
griefs, and the pangs are over.
The old wife arose with difficulty from her seat,
and went to the coffin to look her last look-to take
her last farewell Through the fast falling tears she
gazed long and fondly down into the pale, uneon-
scious face. What did she see theree Others saw
nothing but the rigid features of the dead she saw
more In every wrinkle of that brow she read the
history of years; from youth to manhood from man
hood to old age in joy and sorrow, in sickness and
health, it all there; when those children, who
had not quite outgrown the sympathies of childhood,
we're infants lying her BOSOM and every year since
then-there it To others those dull mute mont
uninteligibe to her they were the alphabet
OF the heart, familiar household words
Then the future: "What will become of me9 What
shall l do now?' She did not say so, but she felt
it. The prospect of the old wife is clouded the home
circle is broken, to be reunited the visions
of the hearthstone scattered forever Up to that
hour there a home to which the heart always
turned with fondness. That magic is now sundered,
the keystone of that sacred arch has fallen and home
is nowhere this side of heaven Shall she gather up
the scattered fragments of the broken arch make
them her temple and her shrine, sit down in her chill
solictude beside its expiring fires, and die? What
shall she do noWg
They gently crowded her away from the dead and
the undertaken forward, with the coffind in
his hand 1t is all right and proper, of course, it
must be done; but to the heart mourner it brings
n kind of shudder, thrill of agony. The under
taker stood for a moment, with decent propriety,
not wishing to manifest rude haste, but evidently de-
sirous of being expeditions possible. Just as
he was about to close the coffin, the old wife turned
back, and STOPPING down, imprinted one long, last
kiss upon the cold lips of her dead husband, then
staggered to her seat buried her face in her hands,
and the closing coinlid hid him from her sight for
ever
That kiss fond token of affection, and of sorrow,
of memory and farewell | have seen many kiss
their dead many such seals of love upon clay-cold
lips but did | purely sad, so simply
heart touching and hopeless that Or, if it had
hope, it was that which looks beyond coffns and
charnel houses and damp, dark tombs, to the joys
of the home above. You would kiss the cold cheek
of infancy; there is poetry; it is beauty hushed;
there is romance there for the faded flower is still
beautiful In childhood the heart yields to the stroke
of sorrow, but recos again with elastic faith buoy
ant with hope but here beauty no poetry, no
romance.
The heart of the old wife like the weary
swimmer whose strength has often raised him above
the stormy waves, but now, exhausted, sinks amid
the surges The temple of her earthly hopes had
fallen and what there left for her but to sit
down in dependency, among its lonely ruins, and
weep and die, or in the spirit of better hope, await
the dawning of another day. when Hand divine
shall gather its sacred dust, and rebuild for immor-
tally its broken walsl ANONYMOUS