In his arms death found her lying, in his arms her spirit fled;
And his tears came down in torrents, as he knelt beside her dead.
Never once his love had faltered through her base unhallowed life;
And the stone above her ashes bears the honoured name of wife.
* * * * *
That’s the blossom I fain would pluck to-day from the garden above her dust;
Not the languorous lily of soulless sin nor the blood-red rose of lust;
But a sweet white blossom of holy love that grew in the one green spot
In the arid desert of Phryne’s life, where all was parched and hot.
In 1886, Mrs. James Brown Potter recited this poem at a soirée given in the house of Mr. Secretary Whitney, in Washington, U.S.A., before a large company of ladies and gentlemen. During the recital some of the ladies rose and left the room; the New York papers spitefully remarked of those ladies who remained to hear the poem to the end, that, being in evening dress, they were observed to blush almost down to their waists.