| |
| BRING snow-white lilies, pallid heart-flushed roses, | |
| Enwreathe her brow with heavy scented flowers; | |
| In soft undreaming sleep her head reposes, | |
| While, unregretted, pass the sunlit hours. | |
| |
| Few sorrows did she know—and all are over; | 5 |
| A thousand joys—but they are all forgot; | |
| Her life was one fair dream of friend and lover, | |
| And were they false—ah, well, she knows it not. | |
| |
| Look in her face and lose thy dread of dying; | |
| Weep not that rest will come, that toil will cease; | 10 |
| Is it not well to lie as she is lying, | |
| In utter silence, and in perfect peace? | |
| |
| Canst thou repine that sentient days are numbered? | |
| Death is unconscious Life, that waits for birth; | |
| So didst thou live, while yet thine embryo slumbered, | 15 |
| Senseless, unbreathing, even as heaven and earth. | |
| |
| Then shrink no more from Death, though Life be gladness, | |
| Nor seek him, restless in thy lonely pain; | |
| The law of joy ordains each hour of sadness, | |
| And firm or frail, thou canst not live in vain. | 20 |
| |
| What though thy name by no sad lips be spoken, | |
| And no fond heart shall keep thy memory green? | |
| Thou yet shalt leave thine own enduring token, | |
| For earth is not as though thou ne’er hadst been. | |
| |
| See you broad current, hasting to the ocean, | 25 |
| Its ripples glorious in the western red: | |
| Each wavelet passes, trackless; yet its motion | |
| Has changed for evermore the river bed. | |
| |
| Ah, wherefore weep, although the form and fashion | |
| Of what thou seemest fades like sunset flame? | 30 |
| The uncreated Source of toil and passion | |
| Through everlasting change abides the same. | |
| |
| Yes, thou shalt die: but these almighty forces, | |
| That meet to form thee, live for evermore; | |
| They hold the suns in their eternal courses, | 35 |
| And shape the tiny sand-grains on the shore. | |
| |
| Be calmly glad, thine own true kindred seeing | |
| In fire and storm, in flowers with dew impearled; | |
| Rejoice in thine imperishable being, | |
| One with the essence of the boundless world. | 40 |
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