Slowly the maiden answered, “My poor friend,
What is it doth affright you, and offend?
Believe me, dear, the thing that we call death
Is a delusion. Lo! it vanisheth,
As a fog when the bells begin their pealing;
As dreams with daylight through the window stealing.
“I am not dying! See, I mount the boat
With a light foot! And now we are afloat!
Good-by! good-by! We are drifting out to sea.
The waves encompass us, and needs must be
The very avenue to Paradise,
For all around they touch the azure skies!
“Gently they rock us now. And overhead
So many stars are shining! Ah,” she said,
“Among those worlds one surely may be found
Where two may love in peace! Hark, Saints, that sound!
Is it an organ played across the deep?”
Then sighed, and fell, as it had been, asleep.
And, by her smiling lips, you might have guessed
That yet she spake. Only the Santen pressed
About the sleeper in a mournful band,
And, with a taper passed from hand to hand,
Signed the cross o’er her. While, as turned to stone,
The parents gazed on what themselves had done.
To them her form is all enrayed with light.
Vainly they feel her cold, they see her white:
The awful stroke they comprehend not now.
But, soon as Vincen marked the level brow,
The rigid arms, the sweet eyes wholly veiled,
“See you not she is dead?” he loudly wailed.
“Quite dead?” And therewith fiercely wrung his hands,
As he of old had wrung the osier-strands,
And threw his naked arms abroad. “My own!”
He cried, “they will not weep for you alone:
With yours, the trunk of my life too they fell.
‘Dead’ was I saying? ’Tis impossible:
“A demon whispered me the word, no doubt!
Tell me, in God’s name, ye who stand about,—
Ye who have seen dead women ere to-day,—
If, passing through the gates, they smile that way.
Her look is well-nigh merry, do you see?
Why do they turn their heads away from me,
“And weep? This means, I think, that all is o’er.
Her pretty prattle I shall hear no more:
Still is the voice I loved!” All hearts were thrilled;
Tears rushed like rain, and sobs would not be stilled.
One sound went up of weeping and lament,
Till the waves on the beach returned the plaint.
So when in some great herd a heifer dies,
About the carcass where it starkly lies
Nine following eves the beasts take up their station,
And seem to mourn after their speechless fashion;
The sea, the plain, the winds, thereover blowing,
Echo nine days with melancholy lowing,—
“Poor Master Ambroi!” Vincen wandered on,
“Thou wilt weep heavy tears over thy son!
And now, good Santen, one last wish is mine,—
Bury me with my love, below the brine;
Scoop in the oozy sand a crib for two:
Tears for so great a mourning will not do.