With a tender touch they closed up well
The sweet thin lips that had secrets to tell;

Above her brows and beautiful face
They tied her veil and her marriage lace,

And drew on her white feet her white-silk shoes
Which were the whitest no eye could choose,--

And over her bosom they crossed her hands.
"Come away," they said, "God understands."

And there was silence, and nothing there
But silence and scents of eglantere,

And jasmine, and roses and rosemary,
And they said: "As a lady should lie, lies she."

And they held their breath till they left the room,
With a shudder, a glance at its stillness and gloom.

But he who loved her too well to dread
The sweet, the stately, the beautiful dead,

He lit his lamp, and he took the key
And turned it--alone again, he and she.

He and she; but she would not speak,
Though he kissed, in the old place, the quiet cheek.