Their children have gone and left them; They sit in the sun alone, And the old wife’s ears are failing As she harks to the well-known tone
That won her heart in her girlhood, That has soothed her in many a care, And praises her now for the brightness Her old face used to wear.
She thinks again of her bridal,— How, dressed in her robe of white, She stood by her gay young lover In the morning’s rosy light.
Oh, the morning is rosy as ever, But the rose from her cheek is fled; And the sunshine still is golden, But it falls on a silvered head.
And the girlhood dreams, once vanished, Come back in her winter-time, Till her feeble pulses tremble With the thrill of springtime’s prime.
And, looking forth from the window, She thinks how the trees have grown Since, clad in her bridal whiteness, She crossed the old door-stone.
Though dimmed her eye’s bright azure, And dimmed her hair’s young gold, The love in her girlhood plighted Has never grown dim or old.
They sat in peace in the sunshine Till the day was almost done. And then, at its close, an angel Stole over the threshold stone.
He folded their hands together, He touched their eyelids with balm, And their last breath floated outward, Like the close of a solemn psalm.
Like a bridal pair they traversed The unseen, mystical road That leads to the Beautiful City Whose Builder and Maker is God.