| |
| WHAT 1 offering can the minstrel bring, | |
| To cast upon affection’s shrine? | |
| ’T was hard thy magic spell to fling | |
| O’er the fond heart already thine! | |
| |
| Thou wouldst not prize the glittering gem, | 5 |
| Thou wouldst but cast the pearl away; | |
| For thine is now a diadem, | |
| Of lustre brighter far than they. | |
| |
| I will not bring the spring-tide flower, | |
| Reposing on its gentle leaf; | 10 |
| Its memory lives but for an hour— | |
| I would not thine should be as brief. | |
| |
| My heart!—but that has long been thine— | |
| ’T were but a worthless offering; | |
| The ruin of a rifled shrine, | 15 |
| A flower that fast is withering. | |
| |
| My song!—’t is but a mournful strain, | |
| So deep in sorrow’s mantle clad, | |
| E’en echo will not wake again | |
| The music of a strain so sad. | 20 |
| |
| A wither’d leaf!—nay, scorn it not, | |
| Nor deem it all unworthy thee; | |
| It grew upon a hallow’d spot, | |
| And sacred is its memory. | |
| |
| I pluck’d it from a lonely bough, | 25 |
| That hung above my mother’s grave, | |
| And felt, e’en then, that none but thou | |
| Could’st prize the gift affection gave. | |
| |
| She faded with the flowers of spring, | |
| That o’er her lifeless form were cast,— | 30 |
| And when I pluck’d this faded thing, | |
| ’T was shivering in the autumn blast. | |
| |
| ’T was the last one!—all—all were gone, | |
| They bloom’d not where the yew trees wave; | |
| This leaf and I were left alone, | 35 |
| Pale watchers o’er my mother’s grave. | |
| |
| I mark’d it, when full oft I sought | |
| That spot so dear to memory; | |
| I loved it—for I fondly thought, | |
| It linger’d there to mourn with me! | 40 |
| |
| I ’ve moisten’d it with many a tear, | |
| I ’ve hallow’d it with many a prayer: | |
| And while this bursting heart was clear | |
| From guilt’s dark stain, I shrined it there. | |
| |
| Now, lady, now the gift is thine! | 45 |
| Oh, guard it with a vestal’s care; | |
| Make but thine angel heart its shrine, | |
| And I will kneel and worship there! | |
