Alas! the brother knows not now when fall the sister’s tears!
One haply revels at the feast, while one may droop alone:
For broken is the household chain, the bright fire quench’d and gone!
Not so—’tis not a broken chain: thy memory binds them still,
Thou holy hearth of other days! though silent now and chill.
The smiles, the tears, the rites, beheld by thine attesting stone,
Have yet a living power to mark thy children for thine own.
The father’s voice, the mother’s prayer, though call’d from earth away,
With music rising from the dead, their spirits yet shall sway;
And by the past, and by the grave, the parted yet are one,