The power that living hearts obey
Shall lifeless blocks withstand?
Love led her footsteps where he lay,—
Love nerves her woman's hand.
One cry,—the marble shaft she grasps,—
Up heaves the ponderous stone:—
He breathes,—her fainting form he clasps,—
Her life has bought his own!
PART FIFTH
THE REWARD
How like the starless night of death
Our being's brief eclipse,
When faltering heart and failing breath
Have bleached the fading lips!
The earth has folded like a wave,
And thrice a thousand score,
Clasped, shroudless, in their closing grave,
The sun shall see no more!
She lives! What guerdon shall repay
His debt of ransomed life?
One word can charm all wrongs away,—
The sacred name of WIFE!
The love that won her girlish charms
Must shield her matron fame,
And write beneath the Frankland arms
The village beauty's name.
Go, call the priest! no vain delay
Shall dim the sacred ring!
Who knows what change the passing day,
The fleeting hour, may bring?
Before the holy altar bent,
There kneels a goodly pair;
A stately man, of high descent,
A woman, passing fair.