Childhood Friends
Like a guard of honor were stiffly standing.
Fat fowls under the axe had bled.
Each floor was leaf-strewn, and rose-leaves were spread
By the sisters from sieves on each stair and landing.
For the drive to church the waggon was wound
With veils that had ever been saved by all
The maidens whose heads had been myrtle-crowned
This fifty years past up at the Hall.
But alone in her room through all the worry
She left her sisters to toil and hurry.
Each hour's time held a life's distress.
On her lap lay her sable wedding-dress,
For a garment of white beseems but the young.
At the heaven of fate with clouds overhung
She stared, while a storm in her bosom held sway;
She saw there but gloom that never was lighted.
In her grief she sat, like an autumn day
Where flowers are left, but all of them blighted.
Yet when eager across the threshold he stepped,
She quietly took his hands in her own
And told him of all that, silent, alone.
Through years of pain she had secretly wept.
Then a chilly glint fell on everything,
And across the black dress that lay on her knee
She tremblingly gave him back the ring,
While she spoke so low that near by on a tree
A sparrow tranquilly plumed her wing:
Fat fowls under the axe had bled.
Each floor was leaf-strewn, and rose-leaves were spread
By the sisters from sieves on each stair and landing.
For the drive to church the waggon was wound
With veils that had ever been saved by all
The maidens whose heads had been myrtle-crowned
This fifty years past up at the Hall.
But alone in her room through all the worry
She left her sisters to toil and hurry.
Each hour's time held a life's distress.
On her lap lay her sable wedding-dress,
For a garment of white beseems but the young.
At the heaven of fate with clouds overhung
She stared, while a storm in her bosom held sway;
She saw there but gloom that never was lighted.
In her grief she sat, like an autumn day
Where flowers are left, but all of them blighted.
Yet when eager across the threshold he stepped,
She quietly took his hands in her own
And told him of all that, silent, alone.
Through years of pain she had secretly wept.
Then a chilly glint fell on everything,
And across the black dress that lay on her knee
She tremblingly gave him back the ring,
While she spoke so low that near by on a tree
A sparrow tranquilly plumed her wing:
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