Sometimes I seem to hear the rustle of her garments: ’tis but the wind’s low sighs.

I see the sunbeams trail along the orchard, and fall in thought to tangling up her hair;

And sometimes round the sinless lips of childhood breaks forth a smile, such as she used to wear;

But never any pleasant thing, around, above us, seems to me like her love—

More lofty than the skies that bend and brighten o’er us, more constant than the dove.

She walks no more beside me in the morning; she meets me not on any summer eve;

But once at night I heard a low voice calling—“Oh, faithful friend, thou hast not long to grieve!”

Next year, when larks are singing gaily in the meadow, I shall not hear their tone;

But she in the dim, far-off country of the stranger, will walk no more alone.