Died of Diphtheria in the Fever Hospital, London, February 24th, Buried at Brathay, February 26th, 1884.

My grief is such as all men know
    Who love and lose an honoured friend;
My verse shall pay a part I owe,
    My debt can never end.

(Unpublished letter)

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Alice Ayres,
On the stairs,
    Do you hear the horses come?
God grant that we may see
Your mantle falling free,
    When your soul is caught up home.

Aye, she hears,
Has no fears,
    Tho’ the flames are round her feet,
She has set the window wide,
To the crowd below has cried,
    Cats the mattress to the street.

One by one—
Nobly done—
    Seeks the children through the smoke,
Though the red flames break the door,
Though the white fumes through the floor
    Curl, to stifle and to choke.

Seeks and brings
On the wings
    Of her love so strong and brave
All the children of her care,
Drops them gently thro’ the air
    To the hands outstretched to save.

“Alice! leap!
We will keep
    Safe from harm!” the great crowd calls;
Half in swoon, faint for breath,
From a fiery doom, to death
    Shattered fearfully, she falls.

Alice Ayres,
On the stairs,
    When the golden horses came,
Your mantle fell so free,
All the world was there to see
    Heaven’s chariot-wheels of flame.

Somewhere still
Work and will,
    Tried by fire can stand the test,
Still we think in the Red-Cross Hall,
Of “our Alice, “ hear her call,
    “Die for others, do your best.”

(Ballads of Brave Deeds, p. 10)

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February 26^th, 1884

Cold gleamed the cones of Froswick and Ill Bell,
        And underneath old Fairfield’s crown of snow
    Down to the Rotha and the meads below,
The dark-haired woods of stately Rydal fell.
Out shone the sun, and the daffodils aglow
    Moved in their shrouds, when solemnly and slow
We heard the melancholy mourner’s bell.

Sun failed, the cold air shuddered at the sound,
    The Brathay ran unsparkling to the lake,
Sunless we laid her body in the ground,
        But memory made such summer of the spot
    That in our hearts new sunrise seemed to wake,
            And all the valley bloomed forget-me-not.

(Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 157)

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February 24th, 1884

Her life was as a missal, year by year
        Writ in red letters of self-sacrifice,
    Illumined quaintly for the children’s eyes,
Plain to be read, and musical to hear.
A tale of life so generous, so sincere,
    That angels stooped to listen with surprise,
    And, for such books are scarce in Paradise,
Bade Death go close it—so they brought it there.

Between the golden chapters week by week,
    And ’twixt the lines in ink invisible,
      She, skilled in all the arts, but most in this,
Had penned a language only angels speak,
    And when their fuller sunlight on it fell,
        These words leapt forth in answer—”I am His.”

(Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 153)

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