And then a lighting of her face, a glance at earth and sky.
So tenderly she murmured, with a loving look to me,
“Reuben! ’tis hard in youth to die, but sweet to die for thee?”
We placed her in Friends’ burying-ground; and, though we marked it not,
I could take thee to it in the night, so well I know the spot.
At home for many hours I lay—a stupor on me came;
The only sound that roused me up was mention of her name.
And then Friend Scudder and his wife, who stood beside me, said,
“Who does his living duty pays most honor to the dead.”
Three weeks had passed; it was the night at close of Christmas-day—