The Edinburgh Literary Journal, Vol.6, 24th December 1831, pages 359-360
GIFTS FOR THE PAST.
By L. E. L.
The past—now what shall we give the past?
Oh, give it tears.
For the sorrows that heavily shadows cast
O'er our early years:
For friends that are friends to us no more,
For the grief behind, and the gloom before:
For love that is weeping beside the grave,
It will perish by those whom it could not save—
Long may it mourn over those beneath,
Lingering a life that is worse than death;
For brief is the reign of the sunny hour,
Long is that of the shade, and the shower:
For pleasures in which we no more take part,
For weariness lying like frost on the heart,
For an earth worn out—a sky o'ercast,
The past—now what shall we give the past?
Oh, give it tears.
The past—now what shall we give the past?
Oh, give it smiles.
For falsehood, which, ending in truth at last,
No more beguiles:
For the pleasures from which we turn aside,
For the friends whose flattery we now deride—
They came to our side in the leaf and the flower,
They all fell off in the winter hour:
