University of Virginia Library

OH, SHE WAS YOUNG!

Oh! she was young, and beautiful and good,
But called away, while age toils faintly on—
Gone to the voiceless land of shadows—gone
In the bright morning of her womanhood.
Cheered by the blue-bird's warble of delight,
Spring-time, the tender twilight of the year,
With bursting bud and sprouting grass is here,
And nature breathes of resurrection bright:
It seems unmeet that one so fair should die,
When sounds are heard so charming to the ear,
And sights beheld so pleasant to the eye:
Hush, vain regrets! a land of fadeless bloom
Is now her home—its passage-way, the tomb.