II.

Was it a dream? so sudden and so dread

That awful fiat o’er our senses came!

So loved, so blest, is that young spirit fled,

Whose early grandeur promised years of fame?

Oh! when hath life possess’d, or death destroy’d

More lovely hopes, more cloudlessly that smiled?

When hath the spoiler left so dark a void?

For all is lost—the mother and her child!

Our morning-star hath vanish’d, and the tomb

Throws its deep lengthen’d shade o’er distant years to come.