I should laugh did you not cry;
Listen, dear one, love never can die!
"I am now your heaven-decked bride;
My body and not my love has died!
Dear one, it lies there, I know,
Pale and silent, cold as snow.
"And you say, 'May-Bell is dead.'
Weeping o'er my silent head!
I can see your falling tears,
Hear your sighs and know your fears!
"Yet I smile and whisper this:
I am not the clay you kiss;
Cease your tears and let it lie,
It was mine, but 'tis not I!
"Dear one, what the women love
For its silent home, the grave,
Is a garment I have quit,
As a tent no longer fit.
"'Tis a cage from which, at last,
My enraptured soul has passed.