How shall I shake off the darkness,
The nightmare that feeds on my soul?—
I looked through the windows this morning,
Upon the embankments of snow,
That ridged to the porch of my dwelling,
And covered its floor,
Where a half buried branch of an ever-green rested,
Torn from a discarded Christmas-tree,
Back of the church;—
The terrible wind of the night
Had cut it and carried it thither,
Where in the white, like a wreath it protruded its green,
A wreath for the dead,
Whose soul mid the storm of the night
Had taken its flight.—
O, God, how utterly eerie it seemed
To my mind that had worried alone
Through the vigils of night!
And on that day came the message,
That she was no more.