Classic Poem

SHE WAS THEN DYING OF A CONSUMPTION

?She looks within the mirror, and her form
?Is from its dazzling crystal given again
?In living beauty; yet a hueless charm
?Is on the lip; the blue pellucid vein
?Wanders across a brow, where silent pain
?Sheds paleness on its polish'd ivory.
?The crimson of that cheek has felt the stain
?Of tears, that flow'd unseen by human eye,
As from her pillow rose her midnight prayer—to die.
?And so she died,—in early beauty died,
?A violet by its first soft shower decay'd:
?A flash of radiance on life's changing tide,
?Just seen and loved, and sunk in evening's shade;
?A young sweet star, just rising, but to fade;
?And this fair image smiling in sad bloom
?On her, so soon in quiet to be laid,
?Looks like her angel, in its meekness come,
To tell her of the tomb, her calm, her hallow'd tomb.