“WHY do you weep there, O sweet lady,
Why do you weep before that brass?—
(I’m a mere student sketching the mediaeval)
Is some late death lined there, alas?—
Your father’s? . . . Well, all pay the debt that paid he!”
“Young man, O must I tell!—My husband’s! And under
His name I set mine, and my _death_!—
Its date left vacant till my heirs should fill it,
Stating me faithful till my last breath.”
—“Madam, that you are a widow wakes my wonder!”
“O wait! For last month I—remarried!
And now I fear ’twas a deed amiss.
We’ve just come home. And I am sick and saddened
At what the new one will say to this;
And will he think—think that I should have tarried?
“I may add, surely,—with no wish to harm him—
That he’s a temper—yes, I fear!
And when he comes to church next Sunday morning,
And sees that written . . . O dear, O dear!”
—“Madam, I swear your beauty will disarm him!”