Page:The college beautiful, and other poems.djvu/63

And he blest us one and each in his quaint, un- lettered speech,
Praying all our feet might reach mansions by the crystal sea.

Then with smiles and tender tears, honoring the garnered years,
We in turn our costly tokens did with loving hands unfold,
But the old man turned him where little faces pressed his chair,
For the gifts he counted fair were those clustering heads of gold.

Yet with pitying eyes and dim looked the wed- ding-guests on him,
Stepping softly like sojourners in a consecrated place,
For the weary, white-haired bride lay in pain till eventide,
And before the dawn she died, smiling in her husband's face.

Noiselessly on plumes of flame to their sister angels came,
All the starlight flushed with angels, lifting her beyond the stars,
Where the golden harp she bears echoes down the jasper stairs,