VALEDICTORY STANZAS.
For the Table Book.
The flower is faded,
The sun-beam is fled,
The bright eye is shaded,
The loved one is dead:
Like a star in the morning—
When, mantled in gray,
Aurora is dawning—
She vanish’d away.
Like the primrose that bloometh
Neglected to die,
Though its sweetness perfumeth
The ev’ning’s soft sigh—
Like lightning in summer,
Like rainbows that shine
With a mild dreamy glimmer
In colours divine—
The kind and pure hearted,
The tender, the true,
From our love has departed
With scarce an adieu:
So briefly, so brightly
In virtue she shone,
As shooting stars nightly
That blaze and are gone.
The place of her slumber
Is holy to me,
And oft as I number
The leaves of the tree,
Whose branches in sorrow
Bend over her urn,
I think of to-morrow
And silently mourn.
The farewell is spoken,
The spirit sublime
The last tie has broken,
That bound it to time;
And bright is its dwelling
Its mansion of bliss—
How far, far excelling
The darkness of this!
Yet hearts still are beating,
And eyes still are wet—
True, our joys are all fleeting,
But who can forget?
I know they must vanish
As visions depart,
But oh, can this banish
The thorn from my heart?
The eye of affection,
Its tribute of tears
Sheds, with fond recollection
Of life’s happy years;
And tho’ vain be the anguish
Indulg’d o’er the tomb,
Yet nature will languish
And shrink from its gloom.