13 . To His Wife

O PURE of soul, and fond and deep of heart

For those who darkened be,

Lift up thy holy voice, at morn and eve,

And pray for me,—

For me, who for this thronging world’s hot strife

A prize hath brought to be

Among the known—but sweet too dearly earned;

Ah, pray for me.

Not aye the scholar’s path a track of peace,

Nor from the dread sins free;

Hard by the Isles of Truth doth Circe prowl;

Oh, pray for me.

The spirits’ hell-gloom and its hurricane

Round studious cells may be;

Thou patient Moon of Memory’s dreary sky,

Oh, pray for me.

When through thy well-known window, oped beneath

The uneasy, whispering tree,

Burn stars we children two have tried to count,

Then pray for me.

At hour of rest, and when the moon makes pleased

The melancholy sea,

And noon’s surcease of happy household toil,

Yes, pray for me.

Some solace for this wrung and rifted heart,

That, wheresoe’er thou be,

Thou wilt, God’s holiest gift, thou woman pure,

Yet pray for me.