William Robert Spencer (1770–1834)

MORAVIANS their minstrelsy bring

The death-bed with music to smooth:

So you, lovely comforter, sing

My pangs of departure to soothe!

You sing—but my silent adieu

A sorrow still keener will prove:

You lose but one friend who loves you,

How many I lose whom I love!

When we go from each pleasure refined,

Which the sense or the soul can receive

With no hope in our wanderings to find

One ray of the sunshine we leave:

An adieu should in utterance die,

Or if written, but faintly appear;

Only heard thro’ the burst of a sigh,

Only read thro’ the blot of a tear!