XLII.
’Twas thus the mourner mused from hour to hour,
Beside her loved one laid upon his bier;
She strew’d his corse with many a fragrant flower,
And kiss’d his cheek, and stroked his glossy hair.
You would have thought her love was sleeping there,
And she was watching o’er him—such a smile
Sat on his lip, and wreathed his forehead fair;
But he is dead—and in a little while
The damp and teeming earth that forehead must defile!