University of Virginia Library


233

THE LOVER TO THE LOST.

Mine hour of love hath passed and gone,
For thou art in thy grave;
Oh, why should I be left alone
Without the power to save?
My cold dim love was not like thine,
Else death had owned its might,
And bowed before a thing divine,
And worshipped at its light.
I saw thee fading day by day,
And I could only weep
When love's last beam, hope's parting ray
Closed o'er thy dark cold sleep;
The wan smile on thy sunken cheek,
And on thy pallid brow,
But showed the wo I could not speak,
And cannot think on now.
Oh, never more shall I behold
Thy lofty form and high;
Quenched is the radiant light that rolled
From thy cloud-piercing eye;
The music of thy voice is still,
Thy smile of sweetness gone,
And, like eye's rays o'er dark-brow'd hill,
Thy soul of beauty flown.
No, never more on earth can shine
The light of thy proud name;
The joys have fled that once were mine—
And all my pride of fame—

234

And like a willow in the beams
Of night's pale queen, my heart
Amid past joys for ever dreams,—
Whose smiles cannot depart.
No, never more shall I look up
And drink thy looks of love!
But, oh, the bane of sorrow's cup
Is all unknown above,
And 'tis some joy in all my wo
To know that thou art free
From all the ills of life below,
That sting and torture me.
Sleep, lovely youth! though cold thy bed
And dark thy slumbers are,
And love and hope and bliss have fled
And left thee lonely there,
Yet heaven's sweet smile is o'er thy sleep
And virtue watches by thee,
And she, thy love, will ever keep
Her mournful vigils nigh thee.