Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Rondeaux. II. “I would not shrink”

Charles Dent Bell (1819–1898)

I WOULD not shrink if some dear ghost,

One of the dead’s unnumbered host,

Should rise in silence of the night,

Shrined in an aureole of light,

And pale as snowdrift in the frost.

No! if the brother loved and lost

For me the silent river crossed,

For me left worlds all fair and bright,

I would not shrink!

Oh, if I gauge my heart aright,

Dear would the dead be to my sight;

A vision from the other coast,

Of one on earth I cherished most,

Would be a measureless delight:

I would not shrink!