A pathway for her bleeding feet,
To seek her absent lord.

A temple's broken walls arrest
Her wild and wandering eyes;
Beneath its shattered portal pressed,
Her lord unconscious lies.

The power that living hearts obey
Shall lifeless blocks withstand?
Love led her footsteps where he lay,--
Love nerves her woman's hand.

One cry,--the marble shaft she grasps,--
Up heaves the ponderous stone:--
He breathes,--her fainting form he clasps,--
Her life has bought his own!



PART FIFTH

THE REWARD

How like the starless night of death
Our being's brief eclipse,
When faltering heart and failing breath
Have bleached the fading lips!

The earth has folded like a wave,