The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P.

t fear the grave?
Lower and ever lower in the grade
Of penury fell the mother and the maid,
Till the grim close; when, as the midnight rain
Drove to the pallet through the broken pane,
The dying murmur'd: "Near,--thy hand,--more near!
I am not what scorn deem'd,--yet not severe
The doom which leaves me, in the hour of death,
The right to bless thee with my parting breath--
These, worn till now, wear thou, his daughter. Live
To see thy sire, and tell him--I forgive!"
Cold the child thrills beneath the hands that press
Her bended neck--slow slackens the caress--
Loud the roof rattles with the stormy gust;
The grief is silent, and the love is dust;
From the spent fuel God's bright spark is flown;
And there the Motherless, and Death--alone!

Then fell a happy darkness o'er the mind;--
That trance, that pause, the tempest leaves behind:
Still, with a timid step, around she crept,
And sigh'd, "She sleeps!" and smiled. Too well she sle