But now, I am the only guest,
The grave—the grave now covers all
Who joined me at the annual feast
We kept in this deserted hall.
He paused and then his goblet fill’d,
But never touch’d his lips the brim,
His arm was stay’d, his pulses still’d,
And ah! his glazing eyes grew dim.
The farther objects in the room
Have vanish’d from his failing sight;
One broad horizon spreads in gloom
Around a lessening disc of light.
And then he seem’d like one who kept
A vigil with suspended breath—
So kindly to his breast had crept
Some gentlest messenger of death.
[The Past.]
Still—still the Earth each primal grace renews,
And blooms, or brightens with Creation’s hues:
Repeats the sun the glories of the sky,
Which upward lured the earliest watcher’s eye;
Yet bids his beams the glowing clouds adorn
With all the charms of Earth’s initial morn,
And duplicates at eve the splendors yet
That fixed the glance, that first beheld him set.
[Loved and Lost.]
Love cannot call her back again,
But oh! it may presume
With ceaseless accents to complain,
All wildly near her tomb.
A madd’ning mirage of the mind
Still bids her image rise,
That form my heart can never find
Yet haunts my wearied eyes.
Since Earth received its earliest dead,
Man’s sorrow has been vain;
Though useless were the tears they shed,
Still I will weep again.