Standard Selections Part 18

"Hush! Be a man; you are nearly one by years. G.o.d help you!"

"By years! Oh dear, dear, how many of them! How many of them since I was a little child, younger than any that are here now! Where are they all?"

"Of whom do you speak? Tell me."

"My friends, myself--my--oh! what sufferings mine have been!"

"There is always hope."

"No, no; none for me. Do you remember the boy that died here?"

"I was not here, you know."

"Why, I was with him at night, and when it was all silent, he cried no more for friends he wished to come and sit with him, but began to see faces round his bed that came from home. He said they smiled, and talked to him; and he died at last lifting his head to kiss them. Do you hear?"

"Yes, yes," rejoined Nicholas.

"What faces will smile on me when I die? Who will talk to me in those long nights? They cannot come from home; they would frighten me if they did, for I shouldn't know them. Pain and fear, pain and fear for me, alive or dead. No hope, no hope!"

The bell rang to bed; and the boy, subsiding at the sound into his usual listless state, crept away as if anxious to avoid notice. It was with a heavy heart that Nicholas soon afterwards--no, not retired, there was no retirement there--followed to his dirty and crowded dormitory.

FOOTNOTE:

[13] Adapted by E. P. Trueblood from "Nicholas Nickleby."

THE SECRET OF DEATH

EDWIN ARNOLD

"She is dead!" they said to him; "come away; Kiss her and leave her,--thy love is clay!"

They smoothed her tresses of dark-brown hair; On her forehead of stone they laid it fair;

Over her eyes, that gazed too much, They drew the lids with a gentle touch;

With a tender touch they closed up well The sweet thin lips that had secrets to tell;

About her brows and beautiful face They tied her veil and her marriage lace,

And drew on her feet her white silk shoes-- Which were the whitest no eye could choose--

And over her bosom they crossed her hands.

"Come away!" they said; "G.o.d understands."

And there was silence, and nothing there But silence, and scents of eglantere,

And jasmine, and roses, and rosemary; And they said, "As a lady should lie, lies she."

And they held their breath till they left the room, With a shudder, to glance at its stillness and gloom.

But he who loved her too well to dread The sweet, the stately, the beautiful dead,--

He lit his lamp, and took the key And turned it,--alone again,--he and she.

He and she; but she would not speak, Though he kissed, in the old place, the quiet cheek.

He and she; yet she would not smile, Though he called her the name she loved erewhile.

He and she; still she did not move To any one pa.s.sionate whisper of love.

Then he said: "Cold lips and b.r.e.a.s.t.s without breath, Is there no voice, no language of death?

"Dumb to the ear and still to the sense, But to heart and to soul distinct, intense?

"See now; I will listen with soul, not ear; What was the secret of dying, dear?

"Was it the infinite wonder of all That you ever could let life's flower fall?

"Or was it a greater marvel to feel The perfect calm o'er the agony steal?

"Was the miracle greater to find how deep Beyond all dreams sank downward that sleep?

"Did life roll back its records, dear, And show, as they say it does, past things clear?

"And was it the innermost heart of the bliss To find out so, what a wisdom love is?

"Oh, perfect dead! Oh, dead most dear, I hold the breath of my soul to hear!

"I listen as deep as to horrible h.e.l.l, As high as to heaven, and you do not tell.

"There must be pleasure in dying, sweet, To make you so placid from head to feet!

"I would tell you, darling, if I were dead, And 'twere your hot tears upon my brow shed,--

"I would say, though the Angel of Death had laid His sword on my lips to keep it unsaid.

"You should not ask vainly, with streaming eyes, Which of all deaths was the chiefest surprise,

"The very strangest and suddenest thing Of all the surprises that dying must bring."

Ah, foolish world! Oh, most kind dead!

Though he told me, who will believe it was said?

Who will believe that he heard her say, With the sweet, soft voice, in the dear old way: