"After Death"

After Death

Is this the couch where she lay yesternight

            With awed, majestic face and fleeting breath

            And great sweet eyes that would not shrink from Death?

Is this the pillow, soft with down and white,

On which her dear cheek lay, turned from the light,

            While all about her, bright and golden-fair,

            Sank the rich tangles of her silken hair?

Ah, God―if but for one brief time I might

Again press trembling lips upon her cheek. . .

            Her slim white throat. . . her whiter brow. . . her hair. . .

            Her tender eyes wherein the love-light shone!

But once―but once―to hear those sweet lips speak!

            I should be glad that she is free from care―

            But oh, this first and awful night alone!

"After Death" as it appears in Ella Higginson's When the Birds Go North Again (1898).

A draft of "After Death" on onionskin paper, courtesy of the Ella Higginson Papers, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Heritage Resources, Western Washington University, Bellingham WA. 

"After Death" also appears in the October 1891 issue of Overland Monthly.