PURE from her pain, the earth refined away,
Serenely young, renewed in maiden bloom,
Her fair hands folded on her heart she lay
In gentle death, and sanctified the room.
She ceased as doth a benediction cease,
And her last breath pronounced the low amen
To a long life that, having breathed but peace,
When peace was perfect needs was breathless then.
The bright translucent shrine from which she fled,
The delicate sculpture’s reasserted grace,
The pure white sheen that played about the head,
And lit the glow of sainthood in the face,—
These traits of clear revival after death,
This flicker of refusal to decay,
We took for sign of soul surviving breath
And seal of resurrection on the clay.
W. C. Wilkinson.