Library of the best American literature / Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

by Unknown

And the rose faded. Forth from those blue eyes

There spake a wishful tenderness, a doubt

Whether to grieve or sleep, which innocence

Alone may wear. With ruthless haste he bound

The silken fringes of those curtaining lids

Forever. There had been a murmuring sound

With which the babe would claim its mother’s ear,

Charming her even to tears. The Spoiler set

His seal of silence. But there beamed a smile

So fixed, so holy, from that cherub brow,