Explore "The Golden Legend" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
URSULA spinning. A summer afternoon. A table spread.
URSULA. / I have marked it well, -- it must be true, -- / Death never takes one alone, but two! / Whenever he enters in at a door, / Under roof of gold or roof of thatch, / He always leaves it upon the latch, / And comes again ere the year is o'er. / Never one of a household only! / Perhaps it is a mercy of God, / Lest the dead there under the sod, / In the land of strangers, should be lonely! / Ah me! I think I am lonelier here! / It is hard to go, -- but harder to stay! / Were it not for the children, I should pray / That Death would take me within the year! / And Gottlieb! -- he is at work all day, / In the sunny field, or the forest murk, / But I know that his thoughts are far away, / I know that his heart is not in his work! / And when he comes home to me at night / He is not cheery, but sits and sighs, / And I see the great tears in his eyes, / And try to be cheerful for his sake. / Only the children's hearts are light. / Mine is weary, and ready to break. / God help us! I hope we have done right; / We thought we were acting for the best!