HER GOING.

Suggested by A picture.

 She stood in the open door,
   She blessed them faint and low: 
   “I must go,” she said, “must go
     Away from the light of the sun,
     Away from you, every one;
 Must see your eyes no more,—­
   Your eyes, that love me so.

 “I should not shudder thus,
   Nor weep, nor be afraid. 
   Nor cling to you so dismayed,
     Could I only pierce with ray eyes
     Where the dark, dark shadow lies;
 Where something hideous
   Is hiding, perhaps,” she said.

 Then slowly she went from them,
   Went down the staircase grim,
   With trembling heart and limb;
     Her footfalls echoed
     In the silence vast and dead,
 Like the notes of a requiem,
   Not sung, but uttered.

 For a little way and a black
   She groped as grope the blind,
   Then a sudden radiance shined,
     And a vision her eyelids burned;
     All joyfully she turned,
 For a moment turned she back,
   And smiled at those behind.

 There in the shadows drear
   An angel sat serene,
   Of grave and tender mien,
     With whitest roses crowned;
     A scythe lay on the ground,
 As reaping-time were near,—­
   A burnished scythe and a keen.

 She did not start or pale
   As the angel rose and laid
   His hand on hers, nor said
     A word, hut beckoned on;
     For a glorious meaning shone
 On the lips that told no tale,
   And she followed him, unafraid.

 Her friends wept for a space;
   Then one said:  “Be content;
   Surely some good is meant
     For her, our Beautiful,—­
     Some glorious good and full. 
 Did you not see her face,
   Her dear smile, as she went?”

A LONELY MOMENT.

      I sit alone in the gray,
        The snow falls thick and fast,
      And never a sound have I heard all day
        But the wailing of the blast,
 And the hiss and click of the snow, whirling to and fro.

      There seems no living thing
        Left in the world but I;
      My thoughts fly forth on restless wing,
        And drift back wearily,
 Storm-beaten, buffeted, hopeless, and almost dead.

      No one there is to care;
        Not one to even know
      Of the lonely day and the dull despair
        As the hours ebb and flow,
 Slow lingering, as fain to lengthen out my pain.

      And I think of the monks of old,
        Each in his separate cell,
      Hearing no sound, except when tolled
        The stated convent bell. 
 How could they live and bear that silence everywhere?

      And I think of tumbling seas,
        ’Neath cruel, lonely skies;
      And shipwrecked sailors over these
        Stretching their hungry eyes,—­
 Eyes dimmed with wasting tears for weary years on years,—­