A year ago I held in mine her hand,
And felt the pulses quicken and dissolve,
While o’er her face a light from heaven’s own land
Seemed all the mystery of death to solve.
She raised her weary eyes to mine and sighed—
Sighed as a flow’r o’er which the storm clouds bend
When long the promised sunlight is denied,
And cold and heavy rains from heaven descend.
She tried to speak; I knelt beside her bed,
That one last wish she might to me impart;