The shade fell darker from the clustering vine,
Whose green boughs twined the lattice like a wreath;
The lark had ceased the musical glad laugh
With which he hails the morning; note by note
The matin song had died upon the wind;
The dew which hung upon the cypresses
Had turned to sunshine on the waving leaves;—
Yet came her father not for Emily.—
How vain it is to say we reckon time
By hours or minutes! Time is in the mind,
And counted but by the events it brings:
Its length is in our feelings. Heavily
It past to her whose hopes were on the wing.
At length a step sounds in the corridor
It is a letter—but her eye has caught
The dark seal on it, and the hand is strange.
She dropped the scroll—it told her brother's death!—
"My God! my sacrifice has been in vain—
My father desolate in his old age!"
L. E. L.
