The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 4.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

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[373]
     Softly as Shiloh's flowing water;
And saw, beneath his pilgrim guise,
     The Promised One, so long foretold
By holy seer and bard of old,
     Revealed before her wondering eyes!

Slowly she faded. Day by day
     Her step grew weaker in our hall,
And fainter, at each even-fall,
     Her sad voice died away.
Yet on her thin, pale lip, the while,
     Sat Resignation's holy smile:
And even my father checked his tread,
     And hushed his voice, beside her bed:
Beneath the calm and sad rebuke
     Of her meek eye's imploring look,
The scowl of hate his brow forsook,
     And in his stern and gloomy eye,
At times, a few unwonted tears
     Wet the dark lashes, which for years
Hatred and pride had kept so dry.

Calm as a child to slumber soothed,
     As if an angel's hand had smoothed
The still, white features into rest,
     Silent and cold, without a breath
To stir the drapery on her breast,
     Pain, with its keen and poisoned fang,
The horror of the mortal pang,
     The suffering look her brow had worn,
The fear, the strife, the anguish gone,—
     She slept at last in death!

Oh, tell me, father, can the dead
     Walk on the earth, and look on us,
And lay upon the living's head
     Their blessing or their curse?
For, oh, last night she stood by me,
     As I lay beneath the woodland tree! “

The Jesuit crosses himself in awe,—
     ‘Jesu! what was it my daughter saw?’

“She came to me last night.
     The dried leaves did not feel her tread;
She stood by me in the wan moonlight,
     In the white robes of the dead!
Pale, and very mournfully
     She bent her light form over me.
I heard no sound, I felt no breath
     Breathe o'er me from that face of death:
Its blue eyes rested on my own,
     Rayless and cold as eyes of stone;