The Cross Of Snow

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
        A gentle face--the face of one long dead--
        Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
        The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
    Here in this room she died; and soul more white
        Never through martyrdom of fire was led
        To its repose; nor can in books be read
        The legend of a life more benedight.
    There is a mountain in the distant West
        That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
        Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
    Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
        These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
        And seasons, changeless since the day she died.