Our early friends, those of our youth?
We cannot feel again
The earnest love, the simple truth,
Which made us such friends then.
We grow suspicious, careless, cold;
We love not as we loved of old.
No more a sweet necessity,
Love must and will expand,
Loved and beloving we must be,
With open heart and hand,
Which only ask to trust and share
The deep affections which they bear.
Our love was of that early time;
And now that it is past
It breathes as of a purer clime
Than where my lot is cast.
My eyes fill with their sweetest tears
In thinking of those early years.
It shock'd me first to see the sun
Shine gladly o'er thy tomb;
To see the wild flowers o'er it run
In such luxuriant bloom.
Now I feel glad that they should keep
A bright sweet watch above thy sleep.
The heaven whence thy nature came
Only recall'd its own;
It is Hope that now breathes thy name,
Though borrowing Memory’s tone.
I feel this earth could never be
The native home of one like thee.
