of sorrow. A sense of weakness and unworthiness weighed me down, and
I felt the moisture gather to my eyes and my lips tremble, though
they kept the smile.

All my past life rose up before me, and all my short-comings--all,
my mistakes, and all my wilful wickedness, seemed pleading
trumpet-tongued against me.

I saw her before me whose feet trod with mine the green holts and
meadows, when the childish thought strayed not beyond the near or
the possible. I saw her through the long blue distances, clothed in
the white beauty of an angel; but, alas! she drew her golden hair
across her face to veil from her vision the sin-darkened creature
whose eyes dropped heavily to the hem of her robe!

O pure and beautiful one, taken to peace ere the weak temptation had
lifted itself up beyond thy stature, and compelled thee to listen,
to oppose thy weakness to its strength, and to fall--sometimes, at
least, let thy face shine on me from between the clouds. Fresh from
the springs of Paradise, shake from thy wings the dew against my
forehead. We two were coming up together through the sweet land of
poesy and dreams, where the senses believe what the heart hopes; our
hands were full of green boughs, and our laps of cowslips and
violets, white and purple. We were talking of that more beautiful
world into which childhood was opening out, when that spectre met
us, feared and dreaded alike by the strong man and the little child,
and one was taken, and the other left.

One was caught away sinless to the bosom of the Good Shepherd, and
one was left to weep pitiless tears, to eat the bread of toil, and