“Look, mother,” cried Muriel, “look at that sky!”
She drew her to the casement as she spoke, and flinging it open, they stood, with the blithe, fresh air of the brilliant morning around them, gazing together on the transcendent pomp of the sunrise. Far up the blue zenith, the sky was bannered with floating clouds of gold and purple and crimson, and burst on burst of splendor streamed through them from the dazzling orb which filled the broad day with haughty and majestic glory.
“Is this a day for grief?” said Muriel. “Behold, it throbs with victory—it trembles with immortality! See how its colors and its splendors deck the sky! They glow and burn in beauty and in triumph for the return of a conqueror. Dead soldier of Democracy, the beautiful and bannered sky is for you! Burst high, flash far, float wide, oh divine resplendence, and fill the vast with the gorgeous colors of victory, for to-day all Heaven holds jubilee, and welcomes back one saint and savior more!”
Her low voice trembled with fervor as it uttered the passionate words, and her sunlit face shone like an angel’s. Still holding her mother in her arms, she turned with her to the illuminated form of her lover.
“Think, mother, how he lived,” she said; “think how he died. In a city whose vice it is that its valor and compassion run to brains, he was an arm. A mind trained for the human service, and an arm. An arm swift, and loving-swift to smite the robbers of the poor; a heart that could feel tenderly and gently even for them; a life which beat, in its every artery, with the blood of his love for mankind. Oh, never can I mourn him! The question that shakes the land and age came to him—in the person of that forlorn wanderer it came, saying, shall it be slavery or liberty for such as me—and not with a word, but with a deed he answered, liberty! Ay, with his life he answered, liberty! Look on him with joy as I do, for grief is insult to the dead who die for man. Proud, proud death! Sweet, sweet to die for liberty, and sweet to look in life on him who has so died. Mourn him? Oh, never! My own dear love, my friend, my husband, angel of my heart and of my life, I do not mourn you—I think of you with joy and pride. You smile upon me still, you wait for me in the Hereafter, you see my life all festal with your memory, you see my earthly years flow forward beautiful with your presence and rich with the light of your Paradise. Oh, still be with me—let me never lose the dear consciousness that you see me—let it endure to make my solitude divine, until I meet you in the world of souls!”
Awed and thrilled by her tender and fervent ecstasy, Mrs. Eastman slowly withdrew from her arms, and sank into a chair. A deep and solemn silence tranced the rich room. Muriel glided near her dead lover, and stood with the soft summershine of June tenderly splendid on her golden hair and noble features, her soul rapt in exultant joy and peace, and her thoughts sweeping through Eternity. And as she mused, Emily, with the color in her face and her eyes like stars, went to the organ, and the deep surge of music fit for the burial of champions, rose and rolled in ravishing triumphal grandeur, and swelled in a burning dream of joy immortal, and endless glory for the brave.
Loud rolled and soared the pæan of the music. Burst on burst, the rays of haughty splendor streamed through the bannered pomps that flamed and glowed against the dazzling sapphire of the day. Tide on tide the effulgence poured around the heavenly-hearted heroine; and kindling on the violet velvet of the couch, as on the bier of an emperor, into a softer rapture of triumphant flame, it lay in a blazing halo on the folded hands, the broad heroic breast, the martial and noble features of the dead soldier of Democracy.