Page:Poems Welby.djvu/200

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192
Death's awful shadow o'er her slumber past!
But life to her was lovely to the last.

Translated thus to lovelier worlds than ours,
Without a pang, she knows not of decay,
Nor how she wandered to those blissful bowers,
Nor what it was that stole her breath away.
Nor feels her bark, safe moored in Heaven at last—
To reach that Heaven—the dreary gulf it past!

Brief was her sojourn in youth's beauteous bowers—
She floated calm adown life's glittering tide,
Bright as the beams, and fragrant as the flowers
Amid whose glowing hues she lived and died—
Ere fickle friendship filled her heart with tears,
Or passion marred the peace of her young years.

And she is dead! Death's cold and withering touch
Hath quenched in that young breast life's perfumed flame.
She whom her fair young sisters loved so much!
She whom her parents dear delight to name!
Frail is the tenure of our mortal breath—
Yea, "in the midst of life we are in death!"