5.

They will not say I can not live beyond the weary night, But then I know that I shall die before comes morning's light. How frail is flesh!— but you‘ ll forgive me now I tell you how I loved you, love you; and the pain it gives to leave you now?

This could not be on earth; the flesh, that clothes the soul of me — Ordained at birth a sacrifice to this heredity — Denied, forbade.— Ah, you have seen the bright spots in my cheeks Grow hectic, as before comes night blood dyes the sunset's streaks?

Consumption. “But I promised you my love” —‘ t is left forlorn Of life God summons unto him, and is it then forsworn? Oh, I was glad in love of you; but think: if I had died Ere babe of mine had come to be a solace at your side?

Had it been little then, your grief, when Heaven had made us one In everything that's good on earth and then the good undone? No! no!— and had I lived to raise a boy we saw each day Bud into beauty, with that blight born in him that must slay!

Just when we cherish him the most, and youthful, sunny pride Sits on his curly front, he pines and dies ere I have died. Whose fault?— not mine! but hers or his, that ancestor who gave Escutcheon to our humble house — a death's-head and a grave.

Beneath the pomp of those grim arms we live and may not move; Nor faith, nor fame, nor wealth avail to hurl them down, nor love. How could I tell you this?— not then! when all the world was spun Of morning colors for our love to walk and dance upon.

I could not tell you how disease hid here a viper germ, Precedence slowly claiming and so slowly fixing firm. And when I broke our plighted troth and would not tell you why, I loved you, thinking “time enough when I have come to die.”

Draw off my rings and let my hands rest so... the wretched cough Will interrupt my feeble speech and will not be put off.... Ah, anyhow, my anodyne is this — to feel that you Are near me, that your healthy hand soothes mine's unhealthy dew.

And that your heart excuses all, and that you will not fret Because you understand me now and never will forget.— Now bring me roses pale and pure and tell me death's a lie, — Late was it hard for me to live, now it is hard to die.