“Why do you weep there, O sweet lady,

   Why do you weep before that brass?—

(I’m a mere student sketching the mediaeval)

   Is some late death lined there, alas?—

Your father’s? . . . Well, all pay the debt that paid he!”

   “Young man, O must I tell!—My husband’s!  And under

   His name I set mine, and my death!—

Its date left vacant till my heirs should fill it,

   Stating me faithful till my last breath.”

—“Madam, that you are a widow wakes my wonder!”

   “O wait!  For last month I—remarried!

   And now I fear ’twas a deed amiss.

We’ve just come home.  And I am sick and saddened

   At what the new one will say to this;

And will he think—think that I should have tarried?

   “I may add, surely,—with no wish to harm him—

   That he’s a temper—yes, I fear!

And when he comes to church next Sunday morning,

   And sees that written . . . O dear, O dear!”

—“Madam, I swear your beauty will disarm him!”