(A note: This rather beautiful and sentimental poem became important in a strange way around 1903. Members of the Society for Psychic Research, based around Trinity College Cambridge, had a flood of 'communications' from the other side, purporting to be from Frederick Myers, Edmond Gurney, and Frank Podmore, all deceased founders of that Society. Professor Henry Sidgewick, late Professor of Classics, occasionally joined in. The burden of their messages was for Earl Balfour, the former Prime Minister and Sidgewick's brother-in-law, from a woman he had loved and who had died young. This poem was often used by the 'entities' as a sign that they were present, imparting an eerily lyrical tone to the customary gibberish of automatic writings. Among the sitters were Mrs Henry Sidgwick, one of the founders of Newnham College, and the sister of Rudyard Kipling. The séances went on for more than thirty years.)
We watch'd her breathing thro' the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro!
So silently we seemed to speak --
So slowly moved about!
As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out!
Our very hopes belied our fears
Our fears our hopes belied --
We thought her dying while she slept,
And sleeping when she died.
For when the morn came dim and sad --
and chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed -- she had
Another dawn than ours!