Frederick Tennyson (1807–1898)

WHEN thou wert laid in sickness and in pain

Through one sad autumn, O the falling leaf

Fell gentlier by thy casement in its grief,

And still as holy tears, the evening rain;

Methought the hamlet ne’er would wake again,

So mighty was the sorrow and the calm;

And children wailed, and many a withered palm

Was raised to heaven for thee, and not in vain.

The meek, the rugged, wept beside thy door;

The evil-minded took another way;

And fewer were the murmurs of the poor

For their own troubles than thine evil day;

And when another May-day brought thee forth,

Something from heaven had fallen on the earth.