278
FRAGMENTS.
With none to soothe and none to bless
His hour of sickly loneliness,
When, waked to consciousness again,
The fire gone from his heart and brain,
He could remember some fair thing
Around his pillow hovering;
Of white arms, in whose clasp he slept;
Of young blue eyes, that o'er him wept;
How, when on the parched lip and brow
Burnt the red fever's hottest glow,
Some one had brought dew of the spring,
With woman's own kind solacing.
And he had heard a voice, whose thrill
Was echoed by his bosom still.
It was not hers—it could but be
A dream, the fever's fantasie....
