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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  On the Death of Her Brother, Francis I.

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

V. Death and Bereavement

On the Death of Her Brother, Francis I.

Marguerite de Valois (1553–1615)

From the French by Louisa Stuart Costello

’T IS done! a father, mother, gone,

A sister, brother, torn away,

My hope is now in God alone,

Whom heaven and earth alike obey.

Above, beneath, to him is known,—

The world’s wide compass is his own.

I love,—but in the world no more,

Nor in gay hall, or festal bower;

Not the fair forms I prized before,—

But him, all beauty, wisdom, power,

My Saviour, who has cast a chain

On sin and ill, and woe and pain!

I from my memory have effaced

All former joys, all kindred, friends;

All honors that my station graced

I hold but snares that fortune sends:

Hence! joys by Christ at distance cast,

That we may be his own at last!