CANTO XII.
DEATH.
AS, when in orange-lands God's day is ending,
The maids let fly the leafy boughs, and, lending
A helpful hand, the laden baskets lift
On head or hip, and fishing-boats adrift
Are drawn ashore, and, following the sun,
The golden clouds evanish, one by one;
As the full harmonies of eventide,
Swelling from hill and plain and river-side
Along the sinuous Argens,—airy notes
Of pastoral pipe, love-songs, and bleat of goats,—
Grow fainter, and then wholly fade away,
And sombre night falls on the mountains gray;
Or as the last sigh of an anthem soft,
Or dying organ-peal, is borne aloft
O'er some old church, and on the wandering wind
Passes afar,—so passed the music twined
Of the three Maries' voices, heavenward carried.
For her, she seemed asleep; for yet she tarried
