Classic Poem

Two years within the lonely room
I watched. No sweet ghost came:
No hand that sought mine, grasping through the gloom;
No wings more sun-bright than the dawn's bright flame.

All waited, silent, as of old;
The pictures and the chair:
The merry firelight touched to dancing gold
The mantle, framed, of her who was not there.

Then lo! one winter night it happed
That I sat there alone,
Lonely in heart as moonless hills snow-capped,
Dreaming of love's pale desecrated throne;

When through the door there passed a form
With beauty crowned and light
Whose wings imperious took the dark by storm,
As sunrise storms the rampires of the night.

The night's pure freshness wreathed her head:
The live soul of the sun
Shone through her eyes She gazed at me and said,
" Behold! the living and the dead are one. "

With living voice that strangely sweet
Upon my spirit fell
She said: " I come to comfort and to greet;
I come to tell thy spirit that all is well. "