[This Victorian Web version of The Angel in the House is based on the Project Gutenberg e-text, which was produced by David Price (e-mail ccx074@coventry.ac.uk), from the 1888 Cassell & Company edition. GPL created the html, added links, and made corrections in the text after comparing it with other editions.]
Dear Mother, I can surely tell,
Now, that I never shall get well
Besides the warning in my mind,
All suddenly are grown so kind.
Fred stopp'd the Doctor, yesterday,
Downstairs, and, when he went away,
Came smiling back, and sat with me,
Pale, and conversing cheerfully
About the Spring, and how my cough,
In finer weather, would leave off.
I saw it all, and told him plain
I felt no hope of Spring again.
Then he, after a word of jest,
Burst into tears upon my breast,
And own'd, when he could speak, he knew
There was a little danger, too.
This made me very weak and ill,
And while, last night, I lay quite still,
And, as he fancied, in the deep,
Exhausted rest of my short sleep,
I heard, or dream'd I heard him pray:
'Oh, Father, take her not away!
Let not life's dear assurance lapse
Into death's agonised "Perhaps,"
A hope without Thy promise, where
Less than assurance is despair!
Give me some sign, if go she must,
That death's not worse than dust to dust,
Not heaven, on whose oblivious shore
Joy I may have, but her no more!
The bitterest cross, it seems to me,
Of all is infidelity;
And so, if I may choose, I'll miss
The kind of heaven which comes to this.
If doom'd, indeed, this fever ceased,
To die out wholly, like a beast,
Forgetting all life's ill success
In dark and peaceful nothingness,
I could but say, Thy will be done;
For, dying thus, I were but one
Of seed innumerable which ne'er
In all the worlds shall bloom or bear.
I've put life past to so poor use
Well may'st Thou life to come refuse;
And justice, which the spirit contents,
Shall still in me all vain laments;
Nay, pleased, I will, while yet I live,
Think Thou my forfeit joy may'st give
To some fresh life, else unelect,
And heaven not feel my poor defect!
Only let not Thy method be
To make that life, and call it me;
Still less to sever mine in twain,
And tell each half to live again,
And count itself the whole! To die,
Is it love's disintegrity?
Answer me, "No," and I, with grace,
Will life's brief desolation face,
My ways, as native to the clime,
Adjusting to the wintry time,
Ev'n with a patient cheer thereof--'
He started up, hearing me cough.
Oh, Mother, now my last doubt's gone!
He likes me MORE than Mrs. Vaughan;
And death, which takes me from his side,
Shows me, in very deed, his bride!
Last updated 10 August 2004