Leave me now and I will watch here through the night, And I’ll put in new candles, if these fail. I’ll sit here as I am, where I can see His brow, his nose’s tip and thin white hair, And just beyond his brow, above the altar, The red gash in the side of Jesus like A candle’s flame when burning to the socket. Go all of you, and leave me. I don’t care How cold the church grows. Michael Angelo Went to a garret, which was cold, and stripped His feet, and painted till the chill of death Took hold of him, a man just eighty-seven, And I am ninety, what’s the odds?--go now ... Now Jean we are alone! Your very stillness Is like intenser life, as in your brow Your soul was crystallized and made more strong, And nearer to me. You are here, I feel you. I close my eyes and feel you, you are here. Therefore a little talk before the dawn, Which will come soon. Dawn always comes too soon In times like this. It waits too long in times Of absence, and you will be absent soon.... I want to talk about my happiness, My happy life, the part you played in it. There never was a day you did not kiss me Through nearly seventy years of married life. I had two hours of heaven in my life. The first one was the dance where first we met. The other when last fall they brought me roses, Those ninety roses for my birth-day, when They had me tell them of the first Chicago I saw when just a child, about the Fort; The cabins where the traders lived, who worked, And made the fortune of John Jacob Astor. Poor Jean! It’s scarce a week since you were struck. You sat down in your chair, ’twas after dinner, Then suddenly I saw your head fall forward. You could not speak when I went over to you. But afterwards when you were on the bed I leaned above you and you took the ribbon, That hung down from my cap and pressed it trembling Against your lips. What triumph in your death! Your death was like a mass, mysterious, rich Like Latin which the priests sing and the choir-- May angels take you and with Lazarus, Once poor, receive you to eternal rest.... Two hours of heaven in my life that’s true! And years between that made life more than good. My first sight of Chicago stands for all My life became for you and all I’ve lived. The year is 1829, you know of course. I’ve told you of the trip in Prairie schooners From Ft. Detroit round the lake, we camped Along the way, the last time near the place Where Gary and the steel mills are to-day. And the next morning what a sky! as blue As a jay’s wing, with little rifts of snow Along the hollows of the yellow dunes, And some ice in the lake, which lapped a little, And purplish colors far off in the north. So round these more than twenty miles we drove That April day. And when we came as far