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Now when the dead man come to life beheld
His wife his wife no more, and saw the babe
Hers, yet not his, upon the father’s knee,
And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness,
And his own children tall and beautiful,
And him, that other, reigning in his place,
Lord of his rights and of his children’s love,–
Then he, tho’ Miriam Lane had told him all,
Because things seen are mightier than things heard,
Stagger’d and shook, holding the branch, and fear’d
To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry,
Which in one moment, like the blast of doom,
Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth.

He therefore turning softly like a thief,
Lest the harsh shingle should grate underfoot,
And feeling all along the garden-wall,
Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found,
Crept to the gate, and open’d it, and closed,
As lightly as a sick man’s chamber-door,
Behind him, and came out upon the waste.

And there he would have knelt, but that his knees
Were feeble, so that falling prone he dug
His fingers into the wet earth, and pray’d.

`Too hard to bear! why did they take me hence?
O God Almighty, blessed Saviour, Thou
That didst uphold me on my lonely isle,
Uphold me, Father, in my loneliness
A little longer! aid me, give me strength
Not to tell her, never to let her know.
Help me no to break in upon her peace.
My children too! must I not speak to these?
They know me not. I should betray myself.
Never: not father’s kiss for me–the girl
So like her mother, and the boy, my son.’

There speech and thought and nature fail’d a little,
And he lay tranced; but when he rose and paced
Back toward his solitary home again,
All down the long and narrow street he went
Beating it in upon his weary brain,
As tho’ it were the burthen of a song,
`Not to tell her, never to let her know.’

He was not all unhappy. His resolve
Upbore him, and firm faith, and evermore
Prayer from a living source within the will,
And beating up thro’ all the bitter world,
Like fountains of sweet water in the sea,
Kept him a living soul. `This miller’s wife’
He said to Miriam `that you told me of,
Has she no fear that her first husband lives?’
`Ay ay, poor soul’ said Miriam, `fear enow!
If you could tell her you had seen him dead,
Why, that would be her comfort;’ and he thought
`After the Lord has call’d me she shall know,
I wait His time’ and Enoch set himself,
Scorning an alms, to work whereby to live.
Almost to all things could he turn his hand.
Cooper he was and carpenter, and wrought
To make the boatmen fishing-nets, or help’d
At lading and unlading the tall barks,
That brought the stinted commerce of those days;
Thus earn’d a scanty living for himself:
Yet since he did but labor for himself,
Work without hope, there was not life in it
Whereby the man could live; and as the year
Roll’d itself round again to meet the day
When Enoch had return’d, a languor came
Upon him, gentle sickness, gradually
Weakening the man, till he could do no more,
But kept the house, his chair, and last his bed.
And Enoch bore his weakness cheerfully.
For sure no gladlier does the stranded wreck
See thro’ the gray skirts of a lifting squall
The boat that bears the hope of life approach
To save the life despair’d of, than he saw
Death dawning on him, and the close of all.