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Home  »  A Library of American Literature  »  To Elsie

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

To Elsie

By Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham (1793–1870)

[Born in Boston, Mass., 1793. Died there, 1870. From Metrical Pieces. 1855.]

DEAD, dead and gone!

Thou too hast joined the train

Of those I ne’er shall see again;—

The world is growing lone.

They fall, how fast!

Mates of my fresher prime,

Associates of my waning time,

The passing and the past.

O “tale that’s told!”

How many feebly stay!

How many went but yesterday!

What griefs already old!

New sorrow now!

Fair friend, through many a year

Of spirits light and feelings dear,

Thou must desert me,—thou!

And not one word

To mark the closing scene,

After such meetings as have been?

Speak,—or let me be heard.

Come back! Once more

Thy slender hand be set

In mine. One prayer together yet

We’ll breathe, ere all is o’er.

Meek shade, forgive!

I would not have thee back,

Stretched out again on this world’s rack.

Go forth, go forth, to live.