THE DEATH-BED
by: Thomas Hood (1799-1845)
- E watch'd
her breathing thro' the night,
- Her breathing soft and low,
- As in her breast the wave of life
- Kept heaving to and fro.
-
- So silently we seem'd to speak,
- So slowly moved about,
- As we had lent her half our powers
- To eke her living out.
-
- Our very hopes belied our fears,
- Our fears our hopes belied--
- We thought her dying when she slept,
- And sleeping when she died.
-
- For when the morn came dim and sad,
- And chill with early showers,
- Her quiet eyelids closed--she had
- Another morn than ours.
"The Death-bed" is reprinted
from The Oxford Book of English Verse: 12501900.
Ed. Arthur Quiller-Couch. Oxford: Clarendon, 1919. |
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POEMS BY THOMAS HOOD |
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