Leaning her face on her hand She sat by the side of Hugh, Silently watching him breathe, As a lily curves its grace Over the broken form Of the twin which stood by its side. A glory upon her head Trailed from the light above, Gilding her tranquil hair. There, as she sat in a trance, Her soul flowed through the past, As a river, day and night, Passes through changeful shores,— Sees, on the twofold bank, Meadow and mossy grange, Castles on hoary crags, Forests, and fortressed towns, And shrinks from the widening bay, And the darkness which overhangs The unknown, limitless sea. Was it a troubled dream, All that the stream of her life Had mirrored along its course? All—from that summer morn When she seemed to meet in the field One whom she vowed to love, And with whom she wandered thence, Leaving the home of her youth? Were they visions indeed,— The pillars of smoke and flame, The sound of a hundred fights, The grandeur, and ah! the gloom, The shadows which circled her now, And the wraith of the one she loved Gliding away from her grasp, Vanishing swiftly and sure? Yes, it was all a dream; And the strange, sad man, who moved To the other side of the couch, Bending over it long, Pressing his hand on his heart, And gazing, anon, in her eyes,— He, with his scanty hair, And pallid, repentant face, He, too, was a voiceless dream, A vision like all the rest; He with the rest would fade When the day should dawn again, When the spectral mist of night, Fused with the golden morn, Should melt in the eastern sky. XVI. 1. “Steady! forward the squadron!” cries The dying soldier, and strives amain To rise from the pillow and his pain. Wild and wandering are his eyes, Painting once more, on the empty air, The wrathful battle’s wavering glare. “Hugh!” said Alice, and checked her fear “Speak to me, Hugh; your father is here.” “Father! what of my father? he Is anything but a father to me; What need I of a father, when I have the hearts of a thousand men?” “—Alas, Sir, he knows not me nor you!” And with caressing words, the twain— The man with all remorsefulness, The woman with loving tenderness— Soothed the soldier to rest anew, And, as the madness left his brain, Silently watched his sleep again. 2. And again the father and the wife, Counting the precious sands of life, Looked each askance, with those subtle eyes, That probe through human mysteries And hidden motives fathom well; But the mild regard of Alice fell, Meeting the other’s contrite glance, On his meek and furrowed countenance, Scathed, as it seemed, with troubled thought: “Surely, good angels have with him wrought,” She murmured, and halted, even across The sorrowful threshold of her loss, To pity his thin and changing hair, And her heart forgave him, unaware.