Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
The Meeting
By Edgar Fawcett (1847–1904)I
Where towered a gaunt pine by a rock,
And suddenly, from the earth beneath,
That rent itself with an angry shock,
A shape sprang forth to that wild place,
Whose limbs by chains were trenched and marred,
And whose sardonic pain-worn face
Was grimly scorched and scarred.
Aloft he lifted haggard eyes;
A woman’s form, of mien divine,
Dropt earthward in seraphic wise.
Chaste as though bathed in breaking day,
And radiant with all saintly charms,
She flew toward him till she lay
Close-locked in his dark arms!
“On earth these twain had loved so well
That now their lives, when both are dead,
Burst the great bounds of Heaven and Hell.
Alike o’er powers of gloom and light
Prevailed their fervid prayers and tears;
They meet on this bleak heath one night
In every thousand years!”