Our lady, sir,
Was very beautiful, and you can see
The corse, if you desire."
He followed them
To the dim chamber of the white-robed dead,
And saw them lift the pall, and then he spoke—
"I am Alberto; leave me here alone!"
Wondering, they turned away, and he knelt down
Beside the flower-strewn bier.
At eve they came
To rouse the stranger from his mournful watch;
But to their kind entreaties no reply
Came from the mourner's lips; and when they raised
His forehead from the bosom of the corse,
They quailed with terror, for he too was dead.
Her love had come at length, and Death had wed them!
DREAMINGS OF LIFE.
I slept, and in my sleep I thought
That I was in a dream—
A dream so earnest and so strange,
That even now I deem
'Twas more than the vague phantasies
With which our slumbers teem.
I thought 'twas night—O such a night!
A night so strangely fair,
When the stars smile down so angel-like,
And through the lucid air
The moonbeams poured in a shining cloud
Like a mass of golden hair!
