II.

I shot an arrow through the wood one day In idle sport, and following where it led, I found a doe that I had raised and fed, Stricken, and bleeding fast her life away, Her tender fawn transfixed beside her lay; One random shaft two happy lives had sped. The dry leaves rustled to my startled tread, And filled my fluttering heart with strange dismay; For gazing in those failing eyes my soul Found there another soul, its very twin; Unseen for years, but bowered deep within The heart’s alcove,—oh, lost beyond control! Those murdered eyes still gaze as from a glass Framed in with bloody leaves and trampled grass.

THREE SONNETS IN MEMORIAM.