Between its violet banks, can call a sigh
From that far time when we could roam at eve.
To hear the birds that sang the sunset down,
With wild, glad vesper-songs by Nature taught.
The earnest face and tender eyes, that beamed
With a whole world of deep, undying love,
Rises again before my tear-dimm'd sight.
Then came a time when, with slow steps, and voices low and
sad,
They laid _her_ down to rest. Then life grew dark,
And all that I had left on earth to love
Was but a grave, beneath the churchyard trees,
Where I could sit for dreary hours and weep.
Years fly apace. The wildest grief grows calm--
As storm-clouds lowering in the noonday sky,
Seem darkest when they hang above our heads--
So we most feel the stroke of sorrow when it falls;
But Hope draws near, and, pointing to the Future, whispers-
"Wait:"
Yes, wait awhile; and for a few short years
Struggle, and fight, and bear the burden well.
The sun that sank below the purple hills,
Leaving the earth to darkness and to night,
Shall bring new glory to the morning sky.
Death's night of gloom shall have its morn of bliss,
And we shall find within the golden gates
Our flowers that withered, in eternal bloom!