Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.
After DeathFanny Parnell (18481882)
S
Or shall the darkness close around them, ere the sun-blaze break at last upon thy story?
Shall these lips be seal’d in callous death and silence, that have known but to bewail thee?
Shall the mouth be clay that sang thee in thy squalor, when all poets’ mouths shall sing thee?
I should hear tho’ dead and moulder’d, and the grave-damps should not chill my bosom’s burning.
And my heart would toss within the shroud and quiver as a captive dreamer tosses.
Crying, ‘O my brothers, I have also loved her in her loneliness and sorrow!
Then contented I shall go back to the shamrocks, now mine eyes have seen her glory!’