O woful sight and knowledge for loving eyes and bursting
heart!
Ere she reached it some last stones were flung by the retreating crowd,
a last shot fired in the air,--fired at random, but speeding with as
unerring aim to her aching, anguished breast, death-freighted and
life-destroying,--but not till she had reached her destined point and
end; not till her feet failed close to that bruised and silent form; not
till she had sunk beside it, gathered it in her fair young arms, and
pillowed its beautiful head--from which streamed golden hair, dabbled
and blood-bestained--upon her faithful heart.
There it stirred; the eyes unclosed to meet hers, a gleam of divine love
shining through their fading fire; the battered, stiffened arm lifted,
as to fold her in the old familiar caress. "Darling--die--to
make--free"--came in gasps from the sweet, yet whitening lips. Then she
lay still. Where his breath blew across her hair it waved, and her bosom
moved above the slow and labored beating of his heart; but, save for
this, she was as quiet as the peaceful dead within their graves,--and,
like them, done with the noise and strife of time forever.
For him,--the shadows deepened where he lay,--the stars came out one by
one, looking down with clear and solemn eyes upon this wreck of fair and
beautiful things, wrought by earthly hate and the awful passions of
men,--then veiled their light in heavy and sombre clouds.
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