Calm, on its leaf-strewn bier,
Unlike a gift of nature to decay,
Too rose-like still, too beautiful, too dear,
The child at rest before its mother lay;
E'en so to pass away,
With its bright smile!—Elysium! what wert thou,
To her, who wept o'er that young slumberer's brow?
Thou hadst no home, green land!
For the fair creature from her bosom gone,
With life's first flowers just opening in her hand,
And all the lovely thoughts and dreams unknown,
Which in its clear eye shone
Like the spring's wakening!—But that light was past—
—Where went the dew-drop, swept before the blast?
Not where thy soft winds play'd,
Not where thy waters lay in glassy sleep!——
Fade, with thy bowers, thou land of visions, fade!
From thee no voice came o'er the gloomy deep,
And bade man cease to weep!
Fade, with the amaranth-plain, the myrtle-grove,
Which could not yield one hope to sorrowing love!
