VIII.
Be happy, crowned and living One! and as thy dust decayeth
May thine own England say for thee what now for Her it sayeth—
"Albeit softly in our ears her silver song was ringing,
The foot-fall of her parting soul is softer than her singing."
L. E. L.'S LAST QUESTION.
"Do you think of me as I think of you?"
(From her poem written during the voyage to the Cape.)
I.
"Do you think of me as I think of you,
My friends, my friends?"—She said it from the sea,
The English minstrel in her minstrelsy,
While, under brighter skies than erst she knew,
Her heart grew dark, and groped there as the blind
To reach across the waves friends left behind—
"Do you think of me as I think of you?"
II.
It seemed not much to ask—"as I of you?"
We all do ask the same; no eyelids cover
Within the meekest eyes that question over:
And little in the world the Loving do
But sit (among the rocks?) and listen for
The echo of their own love evermore—
"Do you think of me as I think of you?"
III.