It is a touching picture—that simple, solemn marriage in the room of the patient, an almost helpless invalid! He came to redeem his pledge; and in that simple abode, with death standing just outside the door, with a bride scarce able to whisper that she took him for her lawful spouse, he became a husband. The dim, appealing eyes, the tender little flush in her cheek, the tremor of her thin hand, told the joy in her pure heart, but showed also that her happiness would be as brief as it was sincere. The marriage took place Oct. 24th, 1850, and on the 21st of the following December his wife died. She lingered much longer than her friends expected. At the marriage it was said that she could not live but a very few days. Yet, so soon was it after their union, that the day which is usually the happiest and the day which is usually the gloomiest in a man’s life, came to him within ten weeks of each other. A year after her death, he wrote a poem, “Winter Solstice,” in which he mentions his bereavement:— “—For when the gray autumnal gale Came to despoil the dying year, Passed with the slow retreating sun, As day by day some beams depart, The beauty and the life of one, Whose love made Summer in my heart. Day after day, the latest flower, Her faded being waned away, More pale and dim with every hour,— And ceased upon the darkest day! The warmth and glow that with her died No light of coming suns shall bring; The heart its wintry gloom may hide, But cannot feel a second Spring. O darkest day of all the year! In vain thou com’st with balmy skies, For, blotting out their azure sphere, The phantoms of my Fate arise: A blighted life, whose shattered plan No after fortune can restore; The perfect lot, designed for Man, That should be mine, but is no more.” Still later, he gave expression to his loneliness in that most pathetic of all his writings, “The Phantom.” “Again I sit within the mansion, In the old, familiar seat; And shade and sunshine chase each other O’er the carpet at my feet.” “And many kind, remembered faces Within the doorway come,— Voices, that wake the sweeter music Of one that now is dumb. They sing, in tones as glad as ever, The songs she loved to hear; They braid the rose in summer garlands, Whose flowers to her were dear. And still, her footsteps in the passage, Her blushes at the door, Her timid words of maiden welcome, Come back to me once more.” “She stays without, perchance, a moment, To dress her dark-brown hair; I hear the rustle of her garments,— Her light step on the stair!” “She tarries long: but lo! a whisper Beyond the open door, And, gliding through the quiet sunshine, A shadow on the floor!” “But my heart grows sick with weary waiting As many a time before: Her foot is ever at the threshold, Yet never passes o’er.”