She turned her eyes toward the window, which had been thrown open to admit the cool air of the evening, for the wind had died away, and the heavens were clear—and there, conspicuous amongst its fiery brethren, shone that bright, still, solitary star—still fair and tranquil, when life with all its excitements and hopes was passing away, as when shining above the passion of her young life. It spoke to her of the glory of other worlds contrasted with the vapidity of this, which she had weighed in the balance and found wanting—a high and unchangeable emblem of that which is above us amid all the storms, treacherous calms, and exulting yet bewildering spring-tides of life—the star of her destiny, indeed, if it pointed to Heaven as the haven where her hopes should at last find rest! Her soul passed away in that gaze; they could not tell the exact moment when, but by the dull fixture of the eye, and the dead weight of the hand which lay in his, Alexander knew that he gazed upon the dead.
That oracle spoke truth, which told there is nothing stable in the universe but Heaven and Love!
THE PAST.
In her strange, shadowy coronet she weareth
The faded jewels of an earlier time;
An ancient sceptre in her hand she beareth—
The purple of her robe is past its prime.
Through her thin silvery locks still dimly shineth
The flower-wreath woven by pale mem’ry’s fingers.