Originally published in Tinsley's Magazine (Tinsley Brothers) vol.1 #4 (Nov 1867).
'Dying—is this dying? is this death?'
On her fading brow the close lip-pressure,
On her blue eyes wistful vacantness,
On her white mouth parted without breath,
Burning tears and sobs that scantly measure
Half the mourner's anguish answer—'Yes.'
Draw the curtain, let the wavering willow
With its shadow fan her lying there;
Let the moonbeam rest upon her pillow,
And the night-wind lift the golden hair.
Only little Bertha, only she—
Whom the Swabian village loved to honour
She whom two short months should hail a bride,
Cheats the maidens of their revelry,
Breaks a heart whose life-hope hung upon her
For a green grave on the mountain side.
June shall come, but not the festal dances,
Not the wedlight on that face so fair
Not the flower-crown, and the lover's glances
At the glory of the golden hair.
Hushed the hamlet for the funeral day;
Mute the mourners round the cottage-portals
Tend the mother in bereavement bowed,
And the loved lost face is hid away,
Farewell-kissed and wreathed with pale immortelles;
Then, unheeded of the reverent crowd,
Steals some hireling for the day's sad burden,
Creeps with felon footfall on the stair,
Lifts the facecloth, and for paltry guerdon
Robs the dear head of its golden hair.
June is bright beyond the northern sea,
Bright on hill and wood, on lawn and river,
Tower and roof and echoing city street,
Where the tide of costliest life flows free,
And the proud world's proudest strew for ever
Serf-like homage under Beauty's feet.
Looms of Lyons lovingly infold her,
Pearl of Ind and tropic plumage rare,
And the sunlight lingers on her shoulder,
Prisoned in the pride of golden hair.
O'er the city wanes the summer noon,—
Just such twilight should have come to soften
Bertha's bridal-feast beneath the vine;
Here our darlings dance to lordlier tune,
No such vision on their hearts as often,
Often, stern and ghastly, saddens mine.
Rich in charm that claims our love as duty,
Earth's most favoured, ye might surely spare
Pilfered dower of a dead girl's beauty,
Poor pretension of the golden hair.
Leave barbaric warriors such a spoil!
Or each toilet bring my legend o'er you,
Each assumption of the charnel's wreck:
Then nerve all your spirits to the foil
Of the peasant coffined white before you,
Of her death-damp on your warm white neck!
Ah! some night of revelry or pleasaunce,
While you dream before your mirror there,
What if you should see a wan wild Presence
Come to claim its wealth of golden hair?