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THE SISTER'S DREAM.
She sleeps!—but not the free and sunny sleep
That lightly on the brow of childhood lies:
Though happy be her rest, and soft, and deep,
Yet, ere it sunk upon her shadowed eyes,
Thoughts of past scenes and kindred graves o'erswept
Her soul's meek stillness:—she had prayed and wept.
And now in visions to her couch they come,
The early lost—the beautiful—the dead—
That unto her bequeathed a mournful home,
Whence with their voices all sweet laughter fled;
They rise—the sisters of her youth arise,
As from the world where no frail blossom dies.
Y