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A husband comes! Imperial bride,
Unbar thy regal bower,
Let music ring through every hall,
Light stream from every tower!

Haste, gentle wife, to greet those lips,
They have been long unprest,
That weary head may slumber need,
On thy devoted breast.

She comes not thus! O, heaven! that she –
That E'en she again should wed!
Whose whole life should have been one thought –
The memory of the dead.

Yet, Stay! Call her whom first he loved,
The mistress of his fate,
That child of destiny, whose star
Ascendant made him great.