OLD AUNT LUCY.

Why into that darkened chamber

Walk you with such noiseless tread?

No slumbering one will awaken —

The sheeted form is dead.

Why gaze on the rigid features,

So white in death's embrace,

With such look of awe and pity?

‘ Tis only the same old face.

Why touch you now so tender

The hands that silent lay?

They're only the sunburned fingers

That toiled for you night and day.

Why now, with your tear-dimmed vision,

So softly do you press

Upon the wrinkled forehead

Your lips in sad caress?

How much of care had lighted

That lingering, loving kiss,

Had you in life but gave it —

You never thought of this.

No loving hand e'er brightened

Her life with tender care,

No mother's baby-kisses

Were ever hers to share.

Only for others caring,

The long, long years have fled;

Now, only, they say,— the neighbors —

“Poor old Aunt Lucy's dead.”

And they whisper a girl's ambition,

A name in the world to make;

‘ Way back in her vanished youth-time,

Gave up for a duty's sake.

But whatever had been the story

Of love, or grief, or woe,

It died with the heart, and no one

Will ever care or know.

The hands were hard and toil-stained,

And sallow the cheeks and chin,

But whiter not the snow-wreath

Than the soul that dwelt within.

And methinks a crown resplendent —

Just over the waveless sea —

With gems of self-denial,

Awaits for such as she.