To me they tell a harrowing tale of dear departed hours.
I would not cull Hope’s blossoms now, they seem of deadly bloom;
And can I love the sunshine, when it smiles upon the tomb?
When on one little hallowed spot its joyous beams are thrown,
That sacred turf—the all of earth—I now may call my own.
For there my joys are sepulchred, my hopes are buried there;
Yet with that holy earth are linked high thoughts that mock despair;
Unfaltering faith, that whispers of a purer world than this,
Where spirits that are parted here may “mingle into bliss;”
“Deep trust” that all our sinless hopes, which death forbids to bloom,