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Various

"Standard Selections A Collection and Adaptation of Superior Productions From Best Authors For Use in Class Room and on the Platform"


"O ghost or angel of my buried love,
I know not, I care not which, be welcome here!
Welcome, thrice welcome, to this heart of mine!"
I heard him say, and then I heard no more.
It was high noontide when I woke again,
To hear fierce voices wrangling by my bed--
My father's and my husband's; for, with dawn,
Gathering up valor, they had sought the tomb,
Had found me gone, and tracked my bleeding feet,
Over the pavement to Antonio's door.
Dead, they cared nothing; living, I was theirs.
Hot raged the quarrel: then came Justice in,
And to the court we swept--I in my shroud--
To try the cause.
This was the verdict given:
"A woman who has been to burial borne,
Made fast and left and locked in with the dead;
Who at her husband's door has stood and plead
For entrance, and has heard her prayer denied;
Who from her father's house is urged and chased,
Must be adjudged as dead in law and fact.
The Court pronounces the defendant--dead!
She can resume her former ties at will,
Or may renounce them, if such be her will.


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