| |
| TAKE back into thy bosom, earth, | |
| This joyous, May-eyed morrow, | |
| The gentlest child that ever mirth | |
| Gave to be reared by sorrow! | |
| ’T is hard—while rays half green, half gold, | 5 |
| Through vernal bowers are burning, | |
| And streams their diamond mirrors hold | |
| To Summer’s face returning— | |
| To say we’re thankful that his sleep | |
| Shall nevermore be lighter, | 10 |
| In whose sweet-tongued companionship | |
| Stream, bower, and beam grow brighter! | |
| |
| But all the more intensely true | |
| His soul gave out each feature | |
| Of elemental love,—each hue | 15 |
| And grace of golden nature,— | |
| The deeper still beneath it all | |
| Lurked the keen jags of anguish; | |
| The more the laurels clasped his brow | |
| Their poison made it languish. | 20 |
| Seemed it that, like the nightingale | |
| Of his own mournful singing, | |
| The tenderer would his song prevail | |
| While most the thorn was stinging. | |
| |
| So never to the desert-worn | 25 |
| Did fount bring freshness deeper | |
| Than that his placid rest this morn | |
| Has brought the shrouded sleeper. | |
| That rest may lap his weary head | |
| Where charnels choke the city, | 30 |
| Or where, mid woodlands, by his bed | |
| The wren shall wake its ditty; | |
| But near or far, while evening’s star | |
| Is dear to heart’s regretting, | |
| Around that spot admiring thought | 35 |
| Shall hover, unforgetting. | |
| |
