Explore "At the Bridal" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Oh! but the bride was lovely, / Oh! but the scene was bright, / And why was the bridegroom's face as pale / As his lady's robe of white?
Did you not see beside him / A guest unasked, unbid? / Who came up the aisle with silent feet / And gazed at him? he did!
He saw her eyes upon him, / He felt her icy breath; / And under the bride's warm clinging hand / There crept the touch of death.
And above the low responses / There fell upon his ear / A voice forbidding the nuptial banns; / But no one else could hear.
And when the ring was given, / And when the prayer was said, / He knew, as he led his bride away, / That he was not truly wed.
And while they sat at the banquet, / And mirth flowed like the wine, / A dead girl's voice hissed in his ear, / 'You are not hers, but mine.'
Oh! never beside his hearthstone, / And never in any place, / Shall he be free from the haunting thought / Of that accusing face.