Last Verses. Susan Coolidge

Church averted her stern face,

      The royal pair grew weary of the load

      Of unrepented sin and long disgrace,

      And bought a peace from late relenting Rome.

      Two stately abbeys built they, and endowed,

      With carven pinnacle and tower and dome,

      And soaring spire and bell-chimes pealing loud.

      Within the crypt of one they buried her,

      True wife and queen, when her time came to die;

      And when strong death conquered the Conqueror,

      He slept beneath the other’s altar high.

      Was it of love’s devising that to-day,

      With all the wide-grown city space to bar,

      Across the roofs and towers from far away

      St. Etienne looks upon La Trinita?

      Was it some subtle prescience of the heart,

      Which laid on time and change resistless spell,

      Forbidding both to hide or hold apart

      The resting-place of those who loved so well?

      For still defying distance, day and night

      The spires like beckoning fingers seem to rise,

      The bells to call, as perished voices might,

      “Love is not dead, Beloved; love never dies!”

TEMPERAMENTS

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