The hour the mother loves!—for me beloved it hath not been;
Yet ever in its purple smile, thou smilest, a blessed scene!
Whose quiet beauty o’er my soul through distant years will come—
Yet what but as the dead, to thee, shall I be then, my home?
“Not as the dead!—no, not the dead! We speak of them—we keep
Their names, like light that must not fade, within our bosoms deep:
We hallow even the lyre they touch’d, we love the lay they sung,
We pass with softer step the place they fill’d our band among!
But I depart like sound, like dew, like aught that leaves on earth
No trace of sorrow or delight, no memory of its birth!