The Dead Bride

There she lay so still and pale,
With her bridal robes around her:
Joy is fleeting, life is frail,
Death had found her.

Gone for ever: gone away
From the love and light of earth;
Gone for ever: who shall say
Where her second birth?

Had her life been good and kind?
Had her heart been meek and pure?
Was she of a lowly mind,
Ready to endure?

Did she still console the sad,
Soothe the widow’s anguish wild,
Make the poor and needy glad,
Tend the orphan child?

Who shall say what hope and fear
Crowded in her short life’s span?
If the love of God was dear
Or the love of man?

Happy bride if single-hearted
Her first love to God was given;
If from this world she departed
But to dwell in heaven;

If her faith on heaven was fixed
And her hope; if charity
Filled her full of light unmixed
With earth’s vanity.

But alas, if tainted pleasure
Won her heart and held it here,
Where is now her failing treasure,
All her gladness where? . . .

Hush, too curious questioner;
Hush, and think thine own sins o’er.
Little canst thou learn from her;
For we know no more

Than that there she lies all pale
With her bridal robes around her:
Joy is fleeting—life is frail—
Death hath found her.