The dead woman lay in her first night's grave, And twilight fell from the clouds’ concave, And those she had asked to forgive forgave. The woman passing came to a pause
By the heaped white shapes of wreath and cross, And looked upon where the other was. And as she mused there thus spoke she: “Never your countenance did I see,
But you've been a good good friend to me!” Rose a plaintive voice from the sod below: “O woman whose accents I do not know, What is it that makes you approve me so?”
“O dead one, ere my soldier went, I heard him saying, with warm intent, To his friend, when won by your blandishment: “‘ I would change for that lass here and now!
And if I return I may break my vow To my present Love, and contrive somehow “‘ To call my own this new-found pearl, Whose eyes have the light, whose lips the curl,
I always have looked for in a girl!’ “— And this is why that by ceasing to be - Though never your countenance did I see - You prove you a good good friend to me;
“And I pray each hour for your soul's repose In gratitude for your joining those No lover will clasp when his campaigns close.” Away she turned, when arose to her eye
A martial phantom of gory dye, That said, with a thin and far-off sigh: “O sweetheart, neither shall I clasp you, For the foe this day has pierced me through,
And sent me to where she is. Adieu! - “And forget not when the night-wind's whine Calls over this turf where her limbs recline, That it travels on to lament by mine.”
There was a cry by the white-flowered mound, There was a laugh from underground, There was a deeper gloom around.
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