But it was not so; for the day had come,—­
Was over:  days and months had come, and Death,—­
Within whose shadow she had lain, which made
Earth and its loves, and even its bitterness,
Indifferent,—­Death withdrew himself, and life
Woke up, and found that it was folded fast,
Drawn to another life forevermore. 
O, what a waking!  After it there came
Great silence.  She got up once more, in spring,
And walked, but not alone, among the flowers. 
She thought within herself, “What have I done? 
How shall I do the rest?” And he, who felt
Her inmost thought, was silent even as she. 
“What have we done?” she thought.  But as for him,
When she began to look him in the face,
Considering, “Thus and thus his features are,”
For she had never thought on them before,
She read their grave repose aright.  She knew
That in the stronghold of his heart, held back,
Hidden reserves of measureless content
Kept house with happy thought, for her sake mute.

Most patient Muriel! when he brought her home,
She took the place they gave her,—­strove to please
His kin, and did not fail; but yet thought on,
“What have I done? how shall I do the rest? 
Ah! so contented, Laurance, with this wife
That loves you not, for all the stateliness
And grandeur of your manhood, and the deeps
In your blue eyes.”  And after that awhile
She rested from such thinking, put it by
And waited.  She had thought on death before: 
But no, this Muriel was not yet to die;
And when she saw her little tender babe,
She felt how much the happy days of life
Outweigh the sorrowful.  A tiny thing,
Whom when it slept the lovely mother nursed
With reverent love, whom when it woke she fed
And wondered at, and lost herself in long
Rapture of watching, and contentment deep.

Once while she sat, this babe upon her knee,
Her husband and his father standing nigh,
About to ride, the grandmother, all pride
And consequence, so deep in learned talk
Of infants, and their little ways and wiles,
Broke off to say, “I never saw a babe
So like its father.”  And the thought was new
To Muriel; she looked up, and when she looked,
Her husband smiled.  And she, the lovely bloom
Flushing her face, would fain he had not known,
Nor noticed her surprise.  But he did know;
Yet there was pleasure in his smile, and love
Tender and strong.  He kissed her, kissed his babe,
With “Goody, you are left in charge, take care “—­
“As if I needed telling,” quoth the dame;
And they were gone.

Then Muriel, lost in thought,
Gazed; and the grandmother, with open pride,
Tended the lovely pair; till Muriel said,
“Is she so like?  Dear granny, get me now
The picture that his father has”; and soon
The old woman put it in her hand.

The wife,
Considering it with deep and strange delight,
Forgot for once her babe, and looked and learned.