THE MEMORIAL BRASS: 186–
Reading edition
“Why do you weep there, O sweet lady, Why do you weep before that brass?— (I’m a mere student sketching the mediaeval) Is some late death lined there, alas?— Your father’s? . . . Well, all pay the debt that paid he!”
“Young man, O must I tell!—My husband’s! And under His name I set mine, and my death!— Its date left vacant till my heirs should fill it, Stating me faithful till my last breath.” —“Madam, that you are a widow wakes my wonder!”
“O wait! For last month I—remarried! And now I fear ’twas a deed amiss. We’ve just come home. And I am sick and saddened At what the new one will say to this; And will he think—think that I should have tarried?
“I may add, surely,—with no wish to harm him— That he’s a temper—yes, I fear! And when he comes to church next Sunday morning, And sees that written . . . O dear, O dear!” —“Madam, I swear your beauty will disarm him!”