But to the west was open to the sky.
There now the sun had sunk, but lines of gold
Hung on the ashen clouds, and on the points
Of the far level grass and nodding flowers
And the old dandelion's hoary beard,
And, mingled with the shades of twilight, lay
On the brown massy woods—and in the east
The broad and burning moon lingeringly rose
Between the black trunks of the crowded trees,
While the faint stars were gathering over-
head.

"Is it not strange, Isabel," said the youth, "I never saw the sun? We will walk here To-morrow; thou shalt look on it with me."

That night the youth and lady mingled lay In love and sleep - but when the morning

came

The lady found her lover dead and cold.
Let none believe that God in mercy gave
That stroke. The lady died not, nor grew

wild,

But year by year lived on—in truth I think

Her gentleness and patience and sad smiles,
And that she did not die, but lived to tend
Her agèd father, were a kind of madness,
If madness 'tis to be unlike the world.
For but to see her were to read the tale
Woven by some subtlest bard, to make hard
hearts

Dissolve away in wisdom-working grief; -
Her eyes were black and lustreless and wan:
Her eyelashes were worn away with tears,
Her lips and cheeks were like things dead-

so pale;

Her hands were thin, and through their wandering veins

And weak articulations might be seen Day's ruddy light. The tomb of thy dead self

Which one vexed ghost inhabits, night and day,

Is all, lost child, that now remains of thee!

"Inheritor of more than earth can give, Passionless calm and silence unreproved,

The Sunset. The moon lingeringly rose between the black trunks of the crowded trees."