Daisy's Necklace, and What Came of It

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars,
Then seemed to go right up to Heaven, and die among the stars.

So now I think my time is near—I trust it is. I know
The blessed music went that way my soul will have to go;

And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day,
But, Effie, you must comfort her when I am past away;

And say to Robin a kind word, and tell him not to fret—
There's many worthier than I would make him happy yet;—

If I had lived—I cannot tell—I might have been his wife;
But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire of life.

Oh look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow;
He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know;

And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine—
Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine.

O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done,
The voice that now is speaking may be beyond the sun—

To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast—
And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest!"

When Bell had finished reading, she took Mortimer's hand in her own.