The lovely child is dead!
All, all his innocent thoughts, like rose-leaves, scattered,
And his glad childhood nothing but a dream!
THOU sleepest!-but when wilt thou wake, fair child! When the fawn awakes, in the forest wild?
When the lark's wing mounts, with the breeze of morn?
When the first rich breath of the rose is born?-
Lovely thou sleepest-yet something lies
Too deep and still on thy soft-sealed eyes!
Mournful, though sweet, is thy rest to see;
-When will the hour of thy rising be?
Not when the fawn wakes,-not when the lark,
On the crimson cloud of the morn, floats dark!
-Grief, with vain passionate tears, hath wet
The hair shedding gleams o'er thy pale brow, yet;
Love, with sad kisses-unfelt-hath prest
Thy meek drooped eyelids, and quiet breast ;-
And the glad spring, calling out bird and bee,
Shall colour all blossoms, fair child, but thee!
Thou art gone from us, bright one! that thou should'st die,
And life be left to the butterfly!
Thou art gone, as a dew-drop is blown from the bough,
-Oh! for the world where thy home is now!-
How may we love but in doubt and fear,
How may we anchor our fond hearts here,
How should even joy but a trembler be,
Beautiful dust! when we look on thee!
How sweet to sleep where all is peace,
Where sorrow cannot reach the breast,
Where all life's idle throbbings cease,
And pain is lulled to rest ;-
Escaped o'er fortune's troubled wave,
To anchor in the silent grave!
That quiet land where, peril past,
The weary win a long repose,
The bruised spirit finds, at last,
A balm for all its woes,
And lowly grief and lordly pride
Lie down, like brothers, side by side!
The breath of slander cannot come
To break the calm that lingers there;
There is no dreaming in the tomb,
Nor waking to despair;
Unkindness cannot wound us more,
And all earth's bitterness is o'er.
There the maiden waits till her lover come
They never more shall part ;
And the stricken deer has gained her home,
With the arrow in her heart;
And passion's pulse lies hushed and still,
Beyond the reach of the tempter's skill.
The mother-she is gone to sleep,
With her babe upon her breast,—
She has no weary watch to keep
Over her infant's rest;
His slumbers on her bosom fair
Shall never more be broken-there!
For me-for me, whom all have left,
-The lovely, and the dearly loved,—
From whom the touch of time hath reft
The hearts that time had proved,
Whose guerdon was-and is-despair,
For all I bore-and all I bear;
Why should I linger idly on,
Amid the selfish and the cold,
A dreamer-when such dreams are gone
As those I nursed of old!
Why should the dead tree mock the spring, A blighted and a withering thing!
How blest-how blest that home to gain,
And slumber in that soothing sleep,
From which we never rise to pain,
Nor ever wake to weep!
To win my way from the tempest's roar, And lay me down on the golden shore!
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