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THE FOREST SANCTUARY.
77


L.

Yes! as if Heaven upon the waves were sleeping,
Vexing my soul with quiet, there they lay,
All moveless through their blue transparence keeping,
The shadows of our sails, from day to day;
While she—oh! strongest is the strong heart's woe—
And yet I live! I feel the sunshine's glow—
And I am he that look'd, and saw decay
Steal o'er the fair of earth, th' ador'd too much!

—It is a fearful thing to love what death may touch.


LI.

A fearful thing that love and death may dwell
In the same world!—She faded on—and I—
Blind to the last, there needed death to tell
My trusting soul that she could fade to die!
Yet, ere she parted, I had mark'd a change,
—But it breath'd hope—'twas beautiful, though strange:
Something of gladness in the melody
Of her low voice, and in her words a flight

Of airy thought—alas! too perilously bright!
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