Year: 1870

The dreary fen from edge TO edge
Is barren, blank, and scar,
The hoar-frost stiffens in the sedge,
There's ice about the mere,
The WoOdcock in the moonlit night


Comes fitting DER the sea;
What is this phantom, pale and bright,
That walks with me?
Her eyes are sad, her touch is chill,


Her voice is soft and low,
Her face is very soft and still


Her face isvexed with woe:
She turns her head from side TO side,


And ever looks she back,
Like one who seeks u missing guide,


Lost on the track
She lays her quiet hand on mine,


1t freezes to the bone;
Quoth she, ~ need nor mark nor sign


To stamp thee for mine own.
Through good and i'll, by board and bed,


With mo thy lot is cast
Whom thou hast loved-whom thou didst wed
am the Past.
"Fair is the Futures shadowy grace;


She fiaunts tempting prize,
And through the veil that dims her face
There Is promise in her eyes.
l fear her not-I court the strife,


Poor rival must she be,
When all the best of all thy life


Is linked to me.
"The Present, like q lavish dame,


Invites thee to her arms, ...
And looks and laughs, and bids the claim
Her favor and her charms
That breathing form in act to clasp,


Oh woman to the core
She melts to nothing in thy grasp,
A dream-no more.
"But am faithful, real, and true,


From me thou shalt not part
My wreath of rosemary and rue


I've wound about thy heart,
NIL thy being, sense, and brain,


Mine while thou drawest breath;
Mine, by the sacrament OF Pain,
Even death!
'Because in life thou titlst refuse
To finch beneath the goad;
Because thy constancy could choose


The labor and the load;
Because, like one who scOTns defeat


And falls upon his sword,
Thou didst elect thy fate to meet;


Have thy reward.
accept the wages, couut the COST .
The toll against the gain:
Some bitter in the sweet is lost


If flOve be tWined with pain;
If sorrow, like summers night,


Reflect with tender ray
The memory of vanished light


That once was day.
"Have thy reward:. am thy mate,


Nor wou!dst thou barter me
For all that fancy could create,


For all that fact could be.
Hereafter in the eternal sphere


Where endless ages roll
Thine by the bond that bound us here,


Bride of thy soul. ..
"Dd not wiring from out thy core


The dross of earthly leaven2
Assign the task, and teach the lore


That finds path to heaven2
Point where the gate Of Mercy stands


Beyond the narrow way,
And force thee down with loving hands,


To kneel and pray?
"Beneath that moonshine CAIN and cold,


Look outward DER the sea,
Where shoots trailing star,-behold


Thy progress but for mel
An upward flash, feeble light,


A fieeting, hickering spark,
A little gleam-a downward flight,


Lost in the dark.
"Quenched by false and goddess glare
nuTsed the sacred fame
Cleansed 1t with penitence and prayer
From taint of sin and shame.
Now perfect purified, and bright
This marriage-torch shall cheer
Our watches through the lingering night
TIL dawn appear.
"Then call me by what name thou wilt
Remembrance, or Regret,
Repentance, or Remorse for guilt
| But clasp me closer yet.
| Mine is the staff thy steps to stay,
| The hand to hold thee fast,
And mine the lamp that lights teh way
To Heaven at last"


GIL yte-lfelville