With death's dark eye acquainted she had been made ere this,
When to her son, her first-born, she gave the farewell kiss,
And when afar she hastened beside her mother's bed,
It followed all her faring with warning fraught and dread;
It filled her with foreboding when standing by the bier:
More sheaves to gather hopeth the harvester austere.
So soon she saw her husband, that man of strength, succumb,
She said with sorrow stricken: « I knew that it would come!'
She thought that he was chosen by God from earth to go,
Would check, her hands upthrusting, the harsh behest of woe;
And with her slender body, too weak for such a strife,
Would ward her gallant consort,-and gave for him her life.
She smiled, serene and blissful, as death's dark eye she braved;
Her sacrifice was given, her heart's proud hero saved.
Our love and admiration lifted a starry dome
Of happiness above her in life's last hour of gloam,
And snow-white pure she passed then to her eternal home.
Such tender love and holy to heaven's bounds can bear
The souls that it embraces in sacrifice and prayer.
On A Wife's Death
Bjarnstjerne Bjarnson
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Poem topics: farewell, god, happiness, heart, heaven, hero, home, husband, kiss, mother, snow, son, sorrow, strength, warning, tender, earth, white, weak, eternal, Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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