Attain the wished repose,
And through these gloomy portals,
Alone, man homeward goes.
O Salis! in that yet are all our expired sighs, all our dried-up tears, and they lift the aspiring heart from its roots and veins, and it fain would die!
The voice of the noble singer gave way to sadness, but still she sang the last of the strophes of this song of the spheres, though lower under the—weight of overmastering sorrow:—
The weary heart, storm-driven,
There, where all tempests cease,
Finds home at length and heaven,
And everlasting peace.[[124]]
Her voice broke, as an eye breaks into tears or a heart in death.... Her friend veiled his head with the leaves of the bower,—the whole of earthly life passed before him like a dirge.—Clotilda's sad past, Clotilda's dark future, drew together before his vision, and cast, in the darkness, the funeral veil over this angel, and bore her shrouded into the grave of her sister.... He had even forgotten his farewell.... He had not the heart to look upon the great scene around him and the bowed form beside him....