Where Death midst the blooms of the morn may dwell,
I tarry no longer—farewell, farewell!
The summer is coming, on soft winds borne—
Ye may press the grape, ye may bind the corn!
For me, I depart to a brighter shore—
Ye are mark’d by care, ye are mine no more;
I go where the loved who have left you dwell,
And the flowers are not Death’s. Fare ye well, farewell!
[256] Originally published in the New Monthly Magazine.
[“‘The Voice of Spring,’ perhaps the best known and best loved of all Mrs Hemans’ lyrics, was written early in the year 1823; and is thus alluded to in a letter to a friend, who had lately suffered a severe and sudden bereavement:—‘The Voice of Spring’ expresses some peculiar feelings of my own. Although my life has yet been unvisited by any affliction so deeply impressive, in all its circumstances, as the one you have been called upon to sustain; yet I cannot but feel every year, with the return of the violet, how much the shadows of my mind have deepened since its last appearance; and to me the spring, with all its joy and beauty, is generally a time of thoughtfulness rather than mirth. I think the most delightful poetry I know upon the subject of this season, is contained in the works of Tieck, a German poet, with whom you are perhaps acquainted; but the feelings he expresses are of a very different character from those I have described to you, seeming all to proceed from an overflowing sense of life and joy.’