SONNET—RESTORATION
Oh Friend! you knew me in those flowery days
When youth for its best ornaments doth wear
The shining graces of its eyes and hair,
And from the idle world that stops to gaze
Need fear no mischief save excess of praise.
And you with others just as young and fair,
Confounding me who then danced round you there,
Pitied the shortness of those flowery days
Know then, dear Friend, the brilliant thing you saw
In life's resplendent prime, was early dead;
The thing you look on now almost with awe,
The pale, cold creature whose sweet youth is fled,
With a new life feels all her heart beat fast—
For Hope, like Resurrection, comes at last.
When youth for its best ornaments doth wear
The shining graces of its eyes and hair,
And from the idle world that stops to gaze
Need fear no mischief save excess of praise.
And you with others just as young and fair,
Confounding me who then danced round you there,
Pitied the shortness of those flowery days
Know then, dear Friend, the brilliant thing you saw
In life's resplendent prime, was early dead;
The thing you look on now almost with awe,
The pale, cold creature whose sweet youth is fled,
With a new life feels all her heart beat fast—
For Hope, like Resurrection, comes at last.
76
