Our eldest mother, learned for life to grieve,
When thought was fresh, and knowledge still divine,
And in love’s light no shade of death did twine.
Our songs to-day grow sweetest through our pain;
Our Eden lost, we find it not again.
Even our truest, most enduring joy
Earth’s twilight darkens with its dusk alloy.
Soft, soft the shadow of thy heaven-dropt strain
Only our weakness dims with sorrow’s stain.
Thou singst, O hermit bird! of Paradise,