Page:Poems Hoffman.djvu/400

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SORROWS

They laid beneath the senseless ground
The noble brow, the active limbs;
They softly chanted burial hymns,
There was no other sound.

She stood alone, with head bent low,
She, the young, beautiful and good;
Alas, her blighted womanhood,
For she had loved him so!

She turned away, life is not brief
Whose best beloved face is gone,
Still, still to suffer and live on,
This, this it is to die of grief.

She saw the sunshine strangely dim,
She saw bright flowers, no longer bright;
Earth's color, beauty, music, light,
Had faded out with him.

She faced the world with faltering breath,
She worked, she smiled, she slept, she waked
None saw the human heart that ached.
Has earth a sadder thing than death?

But evermore she hid her pain
And whispered softly to her grief:
"O heaven is long and earth is brief,
Yet shall we meet again!"

But once she met a face so grieved,
She half forgot her heart's dull care
Before that vision of despair,
Of hope and peace bereaved.

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