The gray, sad sky, the cold and clouded river,
And dismal dwelling by the wintry sea?
Ere half a summer altering day by day,
In fickle brightness, here, hath passed away!
And was that form (whose love might well sustain)
Naught but a vapor of the dreaming brain?
Would I had slept forever.”
The “mournful mother” now speaks. And how sweetly come from her lips the lessons of piety and resignation. She gently rebukes her daughter, contrasts the world which fancy paints with the stern realities of existence, and distils into the opening mind of the child the wisdom which her own sad experience had taught.
“Upbraid not Heaven, whose wisdom thus would rule
A world whose changes are the soul’s best school: