Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891.
The Cross of SnowHenry Wadsworth Longfellow (18071882)
I
A gentle face—the face of one long dead—
Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died; and soul more white
Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in books be read
The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
And seasons, changeless since the day she died.