A year ago I held in mine her hand,
And felt the pulses quicken and dissolve,
While o’er her face a light from heaven’s own land
Seemed all the mystery of death to solve.
She raised her weary eyes to mine and sighed—
Sighed as a flow’r o’er which the storm clouds bend
When long the promised sunlight is denied,
And cold and heavy rains from heaven descend.
She tried to speak; I knelt beside her bed,
That one last wish she might to me impart;
A whisper came, and then the spirit fled
Like some sweet thought long prisoned in the heart.
A year ago I twined the lilies white
About her shroud, and with the coffin’s lace,
For she had loved them; all the long, long night
They press their waxen lips upon her face.
I heard the funeral bell toll sad and long—
My heart reverberates to-day the sound—
And then there came a prayer—a pause—a song,
And blossoms next were heaped upon a mound.
I turned aside and homeward bent my way;
Alas! the face I loved so long—not there—
Sweet memories arose to gild my day,
But sadder ones to mock my heart’s despair.
Where is she now? you think the grave can hide
A friend so true within its dungeon deep?
Ah! no; she walketh ever by my side,
And watches o’er me when I chance to sleep.
We stroll abroad oft at the twilight’s hour
To memory’s garden. Under memory’s tree
She pulls the silver mask from many a flower,
And reads its tender secrets all to me.
She guides my pen along uncertain heights,
Where unattended I could never go;
The candle of success she often lights
When the flame flickers and the wick burns low.
She leads me to the grave and says, “Not here,
But there,” and points me to the heavenly gate;
And when upon my cheek there falls a tear
(For sometimes yet my heart grows desolate),
I feel upon my face her own soft hand,
And glimpses of her robe sometimes have seen.
O, happy thought! how strong is friendship’s band,
When out of heaven an angel friend can lean.
A year ago! sad, sad that parting day,
And sadder still, the last, the long adieu.
Death called the angel of my heart away—
And now she opens heaven to my view.