Stay not the waning pulse, and the masters of science fail.
Then the little footsteps are faint, and a child may take her with ease;
As the flowers a babe flings down she is spread on Elizabeth's knees,
Slipping back to the cradle-life, in her wasting weakness and pain:
And the sister prays and smiles and watches the sister in vain.

So she watch'd by the bed all night, and the lights were yellow and
low,
And a cold blue blink shimmer'd up from the park that was sheeted in
snow:
And the frost of the passing hour, when souls from the body divide,
The Sarsar-wind of the dawn, crept into the palace, and sigh'd.
And the child just turn'd her head towards Elizabeth there as she lay,
And her little hands came together in haste, as though she would pray;
And the words wrestled in her for speech that the fever-dry mouth cannot
frame,
And the strife of the soul on the delicate brow was written in flame:
And Elizabeth call'd 'O Father, why does she look at me so?
Will it soon be better for Anne? her face is all in a glow':--
But with womanly speed and heed is the mother beside her, and slips
Her arm 'neath the failing head, and moistens the rose of the lips,
Pale and sweet as the wild rose of June, and whispers to pray
To the Father in heaven, 'the one she likes best, my baby, to say':
And the soul hover'd yet o'er the lips, as a dove when her pinions are
spread,
And the light of the after-life came again in her eyes, and she said;
'For my long prayer it is not time; for my short one I think I have
breath;
_Lighten mine eyes, O Lord, that I sleep not the sleep of death_.'
--O! into life, fair child, as she pray'd, her innocence slept!