The Loss of a Wife

In comparison with the loss of a wife, all other bereavements are trifling. The wife, she who busied herself so unweariedly for the precious ones around her; bitter, bitter is the tear that falls on her cold clay. You stand beside her coffin and think of the past. It seems an amber-colored pathway, where the sun shone upon the beautiful flowers, or the stars hung glittering overhead. Fain would the soul linger there. No thorns are remembered, save those your hands may unwittingly have planted. Her noble, tender heart lies open to your inmost sight. You think of her now as all gentleness, all beauty, all purity. But she is dead. The dear head then laid upon your bosom, rests in the still darkness upon a pillow of clay. The hands that have ministered so untiringly are folded, white and cold, beneath the gloomy portal. The heart, whose every beat measured an eternity of love, lies under your feet. The flowers she bent over with smiles, bend now above her in tears, shaking the dew from their petals, that the verdure around her may be kept green and beautiful. There is no white arm over your shoulder, no speaking face to look up into the eyes of love; no trembling lip to murmur, "Oh! it is too bad." There is so strange a hush in every room; no light footsteps passing around; no smiles to greet you at nightfall. And the old clock ticks, and strikes, and ticks—it was such music when she could hear it. Now it seems a knell on the hours through which you have watched the shadows of death gathering upon her sweet face. And every day the clock repeateth that old story. Many another tale it telleth, too—of beautiful words and deeds that are registered above. You feel—oh, how often—that the grave can not keep her.--Anon