With no significance apart?
Must I but sparkle in repose
Close to its folded, fragrant, heart,
Its peerless beauty to disclose?

"Would I not toil to win his bread,
And give him all I have to give?
Would I not die in his sweet stead,
And die in joy? But I must live;
And, living, I must still be fed

On love that comes in love's own right.
They must not pet, or pamper me--
Those who rejoice beneath his light--
Or pity him, that I can be
So precious in his princely sight."

With swifter wings, through heart and brain,
The little hour unheeded flew;
And when, behind the blazoned stain
Of saintly vestures, red and blue,
The lights on rose and window-pane

Within the chapel slowly died,
And figures muffled by the moon
Went shuffling home on either side--
One seeking her--she said: How soon!
And then the pastor kissed his bride.