We watched her breathing through the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.
So silently we seemed to speak,
So slowly moved about,
As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.
Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied,—
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.
For when the morn came, dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed,—she had
Another morn than ours.
Thomas Hood.
EVELYN HOPE.
Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead,—
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium flower,
Beginning to die, too, in the glass.
Little has yet been changed, I think,—
The shutters are shut, no light may pass,
Save two long rays through the hinge's chink.
Sixteen years old when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name,—
It was not her time to love: beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares;
And now was quiet, now astir,—
Till God's hand beckoned unawares,
And the sweet white brow is all of her.
Is it too late, then, Evelyn Hope?
What! your soul was pure and true;
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire, and dew,—
And just because I was thrice as old,
And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was naught to each, must I be told?
We were fellow-mortals,—naught beside?