The Daily Herald

THE ABSENT WIFE

"Domestic Love ! to thy white hand is given
Of earthly happiness the golden key."—Croly.

But she is absent! she who was to me
The light and music of my happy home.
It was her smile that made this house so gay,
Her voice that made it eloquent with joy.
Her presence peopled it: her very tread
Had life and gladness in it. But 'tis gone!
And silence fills her place, and solitude
Spreads like a shadow o'er the very walls!
And not a place, chair, book, is what it was,
A moment since, when she, my love was here.
Alas ! how fondly do we consecrate
Our happiness in one beloved form!
A human form, how perishably frail—
On that one life we stake our earthly joy,
In that one life, we live—it is our world :
That gone, our sun is darkened, and the scene
Of late so full of beauty and of bliss,
Is rife with desolation.—From the midst
Of the dark ruins of our withered love,
Methinks there comes a voice in unison
With thine, Eternal Father! in thy word—
"Set your affections upon things above—
Lay up your treasures there, and not beneath
— Earth is too treacherous for so vast a trust."

Newton.