REUBEN
And to Life’s heart, close, close. Hers now at last
Of all the well-known shows to know the sense,
The real heart of friends, the vital calm.
Stay’d thus awhile upon Time’s outmost shore,
A willing and a trustful charge she lay
Facing Eternity. From that small room,
From that high court and sovereign Presence pure
Rancour retreated, trouble fled away.
Reuben and Sarah by that bedside lost
All sense of interacting strain and jar.
She but perceiv’d her dying sister’s face,
Reuben, his wife’s—and both, the breath of God.
But, the fifth day at evening, came a change;
Thaw, with a south wind and persistent rain
Pattering all night long. Blue came the day;
Sea-scented and sun-scented the mild air
Set quick green footsteps in the floor of white.
Nature revived. And Sarah, as she stood
Watching the world return, and spied at last
A figure ’mid the landscape, smiled, and said:
“Here comes the doctor—but you're better, lass.
Eh, we'll do yet.” There came upon her words
A moan—a gasp—a pause; and turning round,
“Mercy!” she wailed. Bending above the bed
With exultation Reuben answer’d her.
“She’s gone!” he said. “She’s gone at last, thank God!’
“Gone!” Sarah cried: “dead, Reuben? Your wife dead,
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