We watched, as, through that dreary night,
She drew her laboring breath,
And, sometimes, when she suffered most,
We almost prayed for death.
Death came—she calmly fell asleep,
While we were sobbing low,
Just as, upon the morning air,
The hour of Ten tolled slow.
We placed a sprig of evergreen
Within her tiny hand,
And, round her silken tresses, wreathed
An Arbor Vitæ band.
We parted back her sunny hair
From her pure waxen brow;
Then laid our darling ’neath the sod,—
We have no Nannie now.
We miss the patter of her feet,
Her gentle prattling tone,
We miss her here; in every place,
We miss our darling one.
She came in love and purity
A little while to dwell,
Amid our darkest shadows, she
A gleam of sunlight fell.
She leaves our hearth-stone desolate;
Our brightest joy has fled;
Her dark blue eye has ope’d to Heaven—
Our little Nannie’s dead!
—L. R.1
