The Works Alexander Brown Bell

The place is empty that she filled; 

Her seat is vacant by the fire; 

Her memory alone is left 

To satisfy my vain desire. 

All empty now, and cold, and dead, 

The rooms she filled with love and life. 

With ghosts of things she said and did 

These haunted chambers now are rife. 

I cannot bear to see the things 

She loved when she was here on earth; 

They wring the memory's hidden chords, 

And strangle comfort in the birth. 

They glare upon me from the walls, 

Those pictures she hung there so late. 

Ah me! they but recall to mind

The pains she took to hang them straight. 

And how she jumped from off the steps 

On which she stood to hang them right, 

And viewed them from a distance--all 

With ways so winning, smile so bright. 

A touch she added here and there, 

Or lengthened out the little cords.

Ah me! how painful now the smart 

Each little thing she did affords. 

Her place is vacant at the board 

As time brings round each varying meal; I

 look to heaven with piteous face, 

And view the blank with vain appeal. 

I see the dainty fancy-work, 

The needle sticking in the seam, 

And think I'll wake some day to find 

‘Tis all some hideous, hateful dream. 

There is that Sunday dress she wore, 

That rent she was so pained about-- 

They stab like daggers to my heart, 

And let my very life-blood out. I

 know the ways she loved to walk, 

The flowers she used to care for so; 

And each one's armed with a sting 

Whose keenness I alone may know.