It was the poem of a like renunciation to theirs, though for different reasons; but there was sufficient literal application to them for Jenny now to understand it too.

It was called a "Denial," and began:-- "We have met late--it is too late to meet, O friend, not more than friend! Death's forecome shroud is tangled round my feet, And if I step or stir, I touch the end.
In this last jeopardy Can I approach thee,--I, who cannot move?
How shall I answer thy request for love?
Look in my face and see.
"I might have loved thee in some former days.
Oh, then, my spirits had leapt As now they sink, at hearing thy love-praise! Before these faded cheeks were overwept, Had this been asked of me, To love thee with my whole strong heart and head,-- I should have said still...Yes, but _smiled_ and said, 'Look in my face and see!' "But now...God sees me, God, who took my heart And drowned it in life's surge.
In all your wide warm earth I have no part-- light song overcomes me like a dirge.
Could love's great harmony The saints keep step to when their bonds are loose, Not weigh me down?
am _I_ a wife to choose?
Look in my face and see-- "While I behold, as plain as one who dreams, Some woman of full worth, Whose voice, as cadenced as a silver stream's, Shall prove the fountain-soul which sends it forth One younger, more thought-free And fair and gay, than I, thou must forget, With brighter eyes than these ...

which are not wet-- Look in my face and see! "So farewell thou, whom I have known too late To let thee come so near.
Be counted happy while men call thee great, And one beloved woman feels thee dear!-- Not I!--that cannot be, I am lost, I am changed,--I must go farther where The change shall take me worse, and no one dare Look in my face and see." The agony of this verse as one reads it is heart-breaking, but as Isabel recited it, it was unbearable, and others in that audience besides Jenny felt the personal cry in the voice, though none but Jenny knew its destination.

But to Jenny's ears the exquisite wifeliness of the last verse was fuller of pain than all the rest,-- "Meantime I bless thee.

By these thoughts of mine I bless thee from all such! I bless thy lamp to oil, thy cup to wine, Thy hearth to joy, thy hand to an equal touch Of loyal troth.