PARTED.


Slow lingering months with swifter pace move on--
Let this dark winter of my life be past;
This cloud athwart the sky of summer thrown--
Whose gloom and darkness on my heart is cast.

Parted--Death's deep, dark river rolls between;
Those talks and rambled when the day was done
And now among the things that once have been,
And I am left in sadness here alone!

Parted! Oh, me, he is for ever gone!
How hopeless _now_ the sunset's golden ray;
How far off seem those joys we both have known,
How cheerless look the paths we used to stray!

Just when the autumn days grew short and chill,
When all its sunny hours seemed past and o'er,
And moaning winds swept wildly o'er the hill,
Like some sere leaf he fell, to rise no more.

The spring shall come, and leaves grow green again,
And vernal beauty to the earth return;
Sunshine and flowers shall deck the hill and plane,
And birds awake with song to greet the morn.