He tries to stand, to stand erect.
’T is gold, ’t is gold that holds him down!
And soul and body both must drown,—
Two millstones tied about his neck.
Now once again his piteous face
Is raised to her face reaching there.
He prays such piteous, silent prayer
As prays a dying man for grace.
It is not good to see him strain
To lift his hands, to gasp, to try
To speak. His parched lips are so dry
Their sight is as a living pain.
I think that rich man down in hell
Some like this old man with his gold,—
To gasp and gasp perpetual
Like to this minute I have told.
XV.
At last the miser cries his pain,—
A shrill, wild cry, as if a grave
Just ope’d its stony lips and gave
One sentence forth, then closed again.
“’T was twenty years last night, last night!”
His lips still moved, but not to speak;
His outstretched hands so trembling weak
Were beggar’s hands in sorry plight.
His face upturned to hers, his lips
Kept talking on, but gave no sound;
His feet were cloven to the ground;
Like iron hooks his finger-tips.
“Ay, twenty years,” she sadly sighed:
“I promised mother every year
That I would pray for father here,
As she had prayed, the night she died:
“To pray as she prayed, fervidly;
As she had promised she would pray
The sad night of her marriage day,
For him, wherever he might be.”