LADY CAMPBELL; IN MEMORIAM by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES

GENTLY supported by the ready aid
Of loving hands, whose little work of toil
Her grateful prodigality repaid
With all the benediction of her smile,
She turned her failing feet
To the soft-pillowed seat,
Dispensing kindly greetings all the while.

Before the tranquil beauty of her face
I bowed in spirit, thinking that she were
A suff'ring Angel, whom the special grace
Of God entrusted to our pious care,
That we might learn from her
The art to minister
To heavenly beings in seraphic air.

There seemed to lie a weight upon her brain,
That ever pressed her blue-veined eyelids down,
But could not dim her lustrous eyes with pain,
Nor seam her forehead with the faintest frown:
She was as she were proud,
So young, to be allowed
To follow Him who wore the thorny crown.

Nor was she sad, but over every mood,
To which her lightly-pliant mind gave birth,
Gracefully changing, did a spirit brood,
Of quiet gaiety, and serenest mirth;
And thus her voice did flow,
So beautifully low,
A stream whose music was no thing of earth.

Now long that instrument has ceased to sound,
Now long that gracious form in earth has lain
Tended by nature only, and unwound
Are all those mingled threads of Love and Pain;
So let me weep and bend
My head and wait the end,
Knowing that God creates not thus in vain.

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