O God! ’t is pitiful to see
This miser so forlorn and old!
O God! how poor a man may be
With nothing in this world but gold!
VIII.
The broad magnolia’s blooms are white;
Her blooms are large, as if the moon
Had lost her way some lazy night,
And lodged here till the afternoon.
Oh, vast white blossoms breathing love!
White bosom of my lady dead,
In your white heaven overhead
I look, and learn to look above.
IX.
All night the tall magnolia kept
Kind watch above the nameless tomb:
Two shapes kept waiting in the gloom
And gray of morn, where roses wept.
The dew-wet roses wept; their eyes
All dew, their breath as sweet as prayer.
And as they wept, the dead down there
Did feel their tears and hear their sighs.
The grass uprose as if afraid
Some stranger foot might press too near;
Its every blade was like a spear,
Its every spear a living blade.
The grass above that nameless tomb
Stood all arrayed, as if afraid
Some weary pilgrim seeking room
And rest, might lay where she was laid.