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“ Ah ! if words were vain 
To picture what she felt when hope’s soft beam 
Mingled, though tremblingly, with anxious fear, 
How doubly vain their power when hope was none ! 
You might have seen her watching by the dead 
As if he were but slumb’ring, and anon 
Look at the clock, as if to calculate 
How long he yet might sleep; then sudden wake 
To the full knowledge of her wretchedness, 
Till sorrow darken’d into deep despair. 
Thus pass’d those few sad days which intervene 
Between die dying and the funeral hour: 
And now the bell with intermittent toll 
Proclaim’d the last solemnities at hand. 
Its awful summons from the hamlets round 
Brought many mourners to the widow’s cot, 
Anxious to show this tribute of respect 
Both to the dead and living. Some there were 
Who strove to speak of comfort, but the words 
Died on the lip; some wept aloud,—but she, 
She—the chief mourner, neither sigh’d nor wept; 
Widow’d and childless, hers was that deep woe 
Which tears can neither measure nor relieve. 
