Dear, when you lift your gentle heart in prayer, Ask God to send His angel Death to me Long ere He comes to you, if that may be. I would dwell with you in that new life there, But having, man-like, sinned, I must prepare, By sad probation, ere I hope to see Those upper realms which are at once thrown free To sweet, white souls like yours, unstained and fair Time is so brief on earth, I well might spare A few short years, if so I could atone For my marred past, ere you are called above. My soul would glory in its own despair, Till purified I met you at God’s throne, And entered on Eternities of Love. HERS. Nay, Love, not so I frame my prayer to God; I want you close beside me to the end; If it could be, I would have Him send A simultaneous death, and let one sod Cover our two hushed hearts. If you have trod Paths strange to me on earth, oh, let me wend My way with yours hereafter: let me blend My tears with yours beneath the chastening rod. If you must pay the penalty for sin, In vales of darkness, ere you pass on higher, I will petition God to let me go. I would not wait on earth, nor enter in To any joys before you. I desire No glory greater than to share your woe. SLEEP AND DEATH. When sleep drops down beside my Love and me, Although she wears the countenance of a friend, A jealous foe we prove her in the end. In separate barques far out on dreamland’s sea, She lures our wedded souls. Wild winds blow free, And drift us wide apart by tides that tend Tow’rd unknown worlds. Not once our strange ways blend Through the long night, while Sleep looks on in glee. O Death! be kinder than thy sister seems, When at thy call we journey forth some day, Through that mysterious and unatlased strait, To lands more distant than the land of dreams; Close, close together let our spirits stay, Or else, with one swift stroke annihilate! ABSENCE. After you went away, our lovely room Seemed like a casket whence the soul had fled. I stood in awful and appalling gloom, The world was empty and all joy seemed dead. I think I felt as one might feel who knew That Death had left him on the earth alone. For “all the world” to my fond heart means you; And there is nothing left when you are gone. Each way I turned my sad, tear-blinded gaze, I found fresh torture to augment my grief; Some new reminder of the perfect days We passed together, beautiful as brief. There lay a pleasing book that we had read-- And there your latest gift; and everywhere Some tender act, some loving word you said, Seemed to take form and mock at my despair.