Mrs. Alice Bradley Neal (1828–1863)

I HAD been tossing through the restless night,—

Sleep banished from my pillow, and my brain

Weary with sense of dull and stifling pain,—

Yearning and praying for the blessed light.

My lips moaned thy dear name, beloved one;

Yet I had seen thee lying still and cold,

Thy form bound only by the shroud’s pure fold,

For life with all its suffering was done.

Then agony of loneliness o’ercame

My widowed heart. Night would fit emblem seem

For the evanishing of that bright dream.

The heavens were dark: my life henceforth the same.

No hope: its pulse within my breast was dead.

No light: the clouds hung heavily o’erhead.