With a start they saw that it was an old-time pier-glass
Which had stood on the mantel near,
Its silvering blemished,--yes, as if worn away
By the eyes of the countless dead who had smirked at it
Ere these two ever knew that old-time pier-glass
And its vague and vacant leer.
As he looked, his bride like a moth skimmed forth, and kneeling
Quick, with quivering sighs,
Gathered the pieces under the moon's sly ray,
Unwitting as an automaton what she did;
Till he entreated, hasting to where she was kneeling,
Let it stay where it lies!"
"Long years of sorrow this means!" breathed the lady
As they retired. "Alas!"
And she lifted one pale hand across her eyes.
"Don't trouble, Love; it's nothing," the bridegroom said.
"Long years of sorrow for us!" murmured the lady,
"Or ever this evil pass!"
And the Spirits Ironic laughed behind the wainscot,
And the Spirits of Pity sighed.
It's good," said the Spirits Ironic, "to tickle their minds
With a portent of their wedlock's after-grinds."
And the Spirits of Pity sighed behind the wainscot,
"It's a portent we cannot abide!
"More, what shall happen to prove the truth of the portent?"
--"Oh; in brief, they will fade till old,
And their loves grow numbed ere death, by the cark of care.
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