Her foot is ever at the threshold,
Yet never passes o’er.”
In his “Picture of St. John” he describes, with a feeling born of experience, a scene like the closing one in the life of his wife.
“Day by day
Her cheeks grew thin, her footstep faint and slow;
And yet so fondly, with such hopeful play
Her pulses beat, they masked the coming woe.
Joy dwelt with her, and in her eager breath
His cymbals drowned the hollow drums of death;
Life showered its promise, surer to betray,