The pensive mourner loves to weep alone;
And silent night is lonely. We are prone
To mask our feelings in the light of day,
And smile when we could weep. O, many a groan
Is smother’d in its birth; and many a ray
Shoots from the sparkling eye, when tears are on their way.
III.
I said ’twas still as death. Well, death was nigh.
Where burn’d the taper’s dim and flick’ring light,
A weary mother sat, with anxious eye