| |
| AND this is death! how cold and still, | |
| And yet how lovely it appears! | |
| Too cold to let the gazer smile, | |
| But far too beautiful for tears. | |
| The sparkling eye no more is bright, | 5 |
| The cheek hath lost its rose-like red; | |
| And yet it is with strange delight | |
| I stand and gaze upon the dead. | |
| |
| But when I see the fair wide brow, | |
| Half shaded by the silken hair, | 10 |
| That never look’d so fair as now, | |
| When life and health were laughing there | |
| I wonder not that grief should swell | |
| So wildly upward in the breast, | |
| And that strong passion once rebel | 15 |
| That need not, cannot be suppress’d. | |
| |
| I wonder not that parents’ eyes | |
| In gazing thus grow cold and dim, | |
| That burning tears and aching sighs | |
| Are blended with the funeral hymn; | 20 |
| The spirit hath an earthly part, | |
| That weeps when earthly pleasure flies, | |
| And heaven would scorn the frozen heart | |
| That melts not when the infant dies. | |
| |
| And yet why mourn? that deep repose | 25 |
| Shall never more be broke by pain; | |
| Those lips no more in sighs unclose, | |
| Those eyes shall never weep again. | |
| For think not that the blushing flower | |
| Shall wither in the church-yard sod, | 30 |
| ’T was made to gild an angel’s bower | |
| Within the paradise of God. | |
| |
| Once more I gaze—and swift and far | |
| The clouds of death in sorrow fly, | |
| I see thee like a new-born star | 35 |
| Move up thy pathway in the sky: | |
| The star hath rays serene and bright, | |
| But cold and pale compared with thine; | |
| For thy orb shines with heavenly light, | |
| With beams unfailing and divine. | 40 |
| |
| Then let the burthen’d heart be free, | |
| The tears of sorrow all be shed, | |
| And parents calmly bend to see | |
| The mournful beauty of the dead; | |
| Thrice happy—that their infant bears | 45 |
| To heaven no darkening stains of sin; | |
| And only breathed life’s morning airs | |
| Before its evening storms begin. | |
| |
| Farewell! I shall not soon forget! | |
| Although thy heart hath ceased to beat, | 50 |
| My memory warmly treasures yet | |
| Thy features calm and mildly sweet; | |
| But no, that look is not the last, | |
| We yet may meet where seraphs dwell, | |
| Where love no more deplores the past, | 55 |
| Nor breathes that withering word—farewell. | |
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