"That woman," she murmur'd, "indeed were thrice blest!"
"Then courage, true wife of my heart!" to his breast
As he folded and gather'd her closely, he cried.
"For the refuge, to-night in these arms open'd wide
To your heart, can be never closed to it again,
And this room is for both an asylum! For when
I pass'd through that door, at the door I left there
A calamity sudden and heavy to bear.
One step from that threshold, and daily, I fear,
We must face it henceforth; but it enters not here,
For that door shuts it out, and admits here alone
A heart which calamity leaves all your own!"
She started . . . "Calamity, Alfred, to you?"
"To both, my poor child, but 'twill bring with it too
The courage, I trust, to subdue it."
"O speak!
Speak!" she falter'd in tones timid, anxious, and weak.
"O yet for a moment," he said, "hear me on!
Matilda, this morn we went forth in the sun,
Like those children of sunshine, the bright summer flies,
That sport in the sunbeam, and play through the skies
While the skies smile, and heed not each other: at last,
When their sunbeam is gone, and their sky overcast,
Who recks in what ruin they fold their wet wings?
So indeed the morn found us,--poor frivolous things!
Now our sky is o'ercast, and our sunbeam is set,
And the night brings its darkness around us. Oh yet
Have we weather'd no storm through those twelve cloudless hours?
Yes; you, too, have wept!
"While the world was yet ours,
While its sun was upon us, its incense stream'd to us,
And its myriad voices of joy seem'd to woo us,
We stray'd from each other, too far, it may be,
Nor, wantonly wandering, then did I see
How deep was my need of thee, dearest, how great
Was thy claim on my heart and thy share in my fate!
But, Matilda, an angel was near us, meanwhile,
Watching o'er us to warn, and to rescue!
"That smile
Which you saw with suspicion, that presence you eyed
With resentment, an angel's they were at your side
And at mine; nor perchance is the day all so far,
When we both in our prayers, when most heartfelt they are,
May murmur the name of that woman now gone
From our sight evermore.
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