CHAPTER FOURTEEN. "DESOLATION." As when a soul laments, which hath been blest, Desiring what is mingled with past years, In yearnings that can never be exprest By sighs, or groans or tears; Because all words, tho' cull'd with choicest art, Failing to give the bitter of the sweet, Wither beneath the palate, and the heart Faints, faded by its heat! The Christmas bells, they are ringing; but ringing no gladness to me! Ringing, and ringing, and ringing; a death-peal, which fain would I flee. The feathery flakes are falling from the dull-grey, pall-like sky; falling, and falling, and falling; and, slowly they gather and lie. The snowy-white mantle it covers, the churchyard and meadow and lea, as now by her grave I am kneeling;--yet, nothing but darkness _I_ see! The little red robin is carving a cross on her grave with his feet; as he hops from the head-stone and carols, his requiem low and sweet. All nature is hushed, and the stillness, of earth and of air and sky, though pierced by the song of the robin, but whispers a long "good-bye!" Good-bye to my darling! 'Tis ended; gone are the hopes of my life--O God! that our fates were blended, and finished this desolate strife! THE END. End of Project Gutenberg's She and I, Volume 2, by John Conroy Hutcheson