Some danger hovering loads the stagnant air.

It serves to little purpose I may know
That electric law
Whereby the jagged glare and thunder-blow
Latent impulse draw;
No less my danger. Ha! that lightning flash
Proclaims in fire the coming thunder-crash.

But what care I though deluges down pour
Beating earth to mire,
Though heaven shattering with the thunder's roar
Scorcheth now in fire,
Though every planet molten from its place
Should trickle lost through everlasting space;

For this blank prospect, void of all but dread,
Void as any tomb,
My soul has left; and by a lonely bed,
In a girl's sick room,
Hangs there expectant of her parting breath,
The silent voice of doom, the stroke of death.



PART THE SECOND.


I. MY LADY IN DEATH.