The Second Marriage

Her soft brown eyes upgazing to his face,
As thro the aisle's one sunlight shaft they pass
With measured pace,
He, smiling at the lips but not the eyes
That seem to gaze upon some form that flies
Far-off, cloud- wrapped, alas !
"He is too young to live alone," we hear,
This woman's fair as was the first, and then
She's dead a year."
Ah true, she's lain twelve months beneath the clay,
But oh, poor ghost, she only dies today,
Yea, with the priest's Amen.
"The new wife clings as fondly as the old."
"There's love in brown eyes as there was in blue."
"The grave is cold."
"The elm, you know, looks bare without a vine."
But ah, Death makes, where two souls intertwine,
No void place for the new.
"Yet this his first true flower of love may be,"
Oh, on the dead wife's grave why pour out gall?
Yet, bitterly
I ll say: The dead is gone forever now,
And better love should garland this young brow
Than life be bloomless all.
Laughter and bells ring o'er the bridal train,
But thro them sigh upon the love-tuned ear,
Low tones of pain.
Oh, haste and gaze into mine eyes, my wife,
Till soul tells soul that love is love for life,
And life begins but here.