Page:Poems Cook.djvu/132

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THE DEAD.
For, like that orb of light,
That chord, and shining leaf,
Forms were once near, as rare and bright;
And, oh their stay as brief.
I watch'd them fading—I saw them sink,
Light, beauty, sweetness fled;
And a type of their being bids me think
Too fondly of the dead.

The sun will rise again,
The string may be replaced,
The tree will bloom-but the loved in the tomb
Leaves the world for ever waste.
Let earth yield all the joys it may,
Still should I bow my head;
Still would my lonely breathing say,
Give, give me back the dead!

As the thickest verdure springs
From the ashes of decay,
And the living ivy closest clings
To the ruins cold and grey;
So my feelings most intense and deep
By the shrouded and lost are fed;
So my thoughts will yearn, and my spirit turn,
To be nurtured by the Dead.


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