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“For erring woman death can bring
No pain so keen as memory’s sting.
Good-night, good-bye. God bless you, dear,
And give you love, and joy, and cheer!
But sometimes, in the dark night, say
A prayer for one who went astray,
And found no pathway back, and died
For love of you–a suicide.”

When morn his glorious pinions spread,
They found the erring woman, dead.

PART II

She woke as one wakes from a deep
And dreamless, yet exhausting, sleep.

A strange confusion filled her mind,
And sorrows vague and undefined,

Like half-remembered faces pressed
To memory’s window, in her breast,

Gazed at her with reproachful eyes.
She felt a sudden, dazed surprise,

Commingled with a sense of dread,
“I did but sleep–I am not dead,

“The potion and the purpose failed,
And I still live,” she wildly wailed.

“Nay, thou art dead, rash suicide,”
A sad voice spake: and at her side

She saw a weird and shadowy crowd
With anguished lips, and shoulders bowed,

And orbs that seemed the wells of woe.
She shrieked and veiled her eyes. “No, no!

“I am not dead! I ache with life.
An earthly passion’s hopeless strife

“Still tortures me.” “Yet thou art dead,”
The voice with sad insistence said.

“But love and sorrow and regret
All die with death. I feel them yet.”

“God bade thee live, and only He
Can say when thou shalt cease to be.”

“But I was sin-sick, sad, alone –
I thought by death I could atone,

“And died that Christ might show me how.”
“Christ bore His burden, why not thou?”

“Oh! lead me to His holy feet
And let my penance be complete.”

“What! thinkest thou to find that path –
Thou who hast tempted Heaven’s wrath

“By thy rash deed? Nay, nay, not so,
‘Tis but perfected spirits go

“To that supreme and final goal.
A self-sought death delays the soul.

“With yonder shuddering, woeful throng
Of suicides thy ways belong.

“Close to the earth a shadowy band,
Unseen, but seeing all, they stand

“Until their natural time to die,
As God intended, shall draw nigh.

“On earth, repentant, sick of sin,
A ministering angel thou hadst been

“Whose patient toil and deeds divine
Had rescued souls as sad as thine,

“Each deed a firm ascending stair
To lead beyond thy great despair.

“But now it is thy mournful fate
To linger here and meditate

“On thy dark past–to stand so near
The earthly plane that thou canst hear

“Thy lover’s voice, while old desire
Shall burn within thee like a fire,

“And grief shall root thee to the spot
To find how soon thou art forgot.

“But since thou hast endured the woes
That only fragile woman knows,

“And loved as only woman can,
Thou shalt not suffer all that man

“Must suffer when he interferes
With God’s great law. In death’s dim spheres

“That justice waits, which men refuse.
Thy sex shall in some part excuse

“Thy desperate deed. When God shall send
A second death to be thy friend,

“Thou need’st not fear a darker fate –
Go forth with yonder throng, and wait.”