Deathless, while the years are flying,
And all lesser hopes are dying.
To my widowed heart near lying
By a life-time's love embalmed,
Is a memory, dear and tender,
And in dreams its bygone splendour
Sweetest, holiest, balm can render
To my grief, by Time uncalmed.

In life's morning, young and early
Glistening fair through dew-drops pearly,
Burst a bud that promised fairly
Through the length of future days.
Ah! it charmed my passion'd dreaming,
Bathed in beauty's brightness, beaming
Fadeless still, and deathless seeming
In fond Hope's delusive haze.

And, as when in wild December,
June's calm twilights we remember,
So this dream in shadowy splendour

Ever haunts my lonely way;
And I see in fond delusion,
Glowing as in light Elysian,
The entrancing, old-time vision
Doom'd so early to decay.

Days when Hope, how false! still flaunted
Through my dreamings, love enchanted,