At Length

HER final summer was it,

      And yet we guessed it not;

If tenderer industriousness

Pervaded her, we thought

A further force of life

Developed from within,—

When Death lit all the shortness up,

And made the hurry plain.

We wondered at our blindness,—

When nothing was to see

But her Carrara guide-post,—

At our stupidity,

When, duller than our dulness,

The busy darling lay,

So busy was she, finishing,

So leisurely were we!