on his bygone days:
"Ah me! ah me! my latter life hath been
A sorry semblance of the lives of men,
Who seek for pleasures in a barren land,
And look for comfort in an empty urn,
And lose the aim wherefore they live and die
Amid the luring of deluding joys.
O error bold! ye now thyself reveal
Within the chaos of departed time,
That she, my wife, received the honor due
Unto my God, for she was as my God,--
The idol I adored, my constant theme.
Forget! forgive! I will return again
Unto a nobler purpose, and will give
Unto my God the reverence which is meet,
And yet a cherished recollection hold,
Because of her who hath departed, and
Who came to warn me of my error here.
Then in a future day I shall ascend,
And share beside her an eternal joy."
Again he thought, "But can the babe be dead?
It which should be my only comfort now.
But now I cannot murmur; I will say,
'God's will be done!' He knoweth what is good."
In manner thus he pondered full and deep,
Until the hall he reached, then entered in.
And all the household wondered whence he came,
For that their lord had been the night away,
But none could ask him whither he had been;
And when they told him that the child was dead,
For it was sickly ere he wandered forth,
He shed a silent tear, and calmly said,
"Great are my woes, but I can bear them now."
And 'twas the vision of the fallen night
That stood a comfort to his spirit then;
Yet he had hoped to see the child survive,
And be a last lone comfort to his soul
Of earthly kind. And they were glad to see
That the full torrent of his grief had gone,
And that a peaceful sadness moved him now.
Then on the fifth day from her death it was,
All due obsequies made, the castle gates
Were opened, and emerged therefrom, in deep
And sombre black, a mournful train, which bore
Unto the grave the mother and the child.
There in the ancients' tombs they were reposed
Together, by the graves where many years
Had slept his fathers in a silent sleep.
The old church bell tolled mournfully, and all
The village mourned, while many wept among
The aged and the feeble, who had known
The kindness of her way, and the full hand
With which in trouble she had come to them.
Then Henry rose, and left the well-loved spot,
Nor could he brook to linger on the scene,
Where had been spent so many happy hours
With her he loved, and where she lived and died;
But in a foreign land he sought a home,
And there sojourned many years away.