Chapter IV

’Tis awful,—the hour when death comes on,
When the voice of cheer or wail is gone;
To feel the lip o’er the dry tooth ope,
To catch half a ray through the eyelid’s scope,
Then shudder, though powerless all, to feel
The frost o’er the glazing orbs congeal,
When the breath grows low, and the heart is chill,
Though the blood creeps ghostlike around it still,
And to gasp a moment, and struggle, and try
To yield the starved spirit,—and groan,—and die,
And still to flicker a dying hour,
When life still hovers, and seems to lower,
Though voice hath no spell, and the pulse no power!