How few, of all the hearts that loved,
Are grieving for thee now;
And why should mine to-night be
With such a sense of woe?
Too often thus, when left alone,
Where none my thoughts can see,
Comes back a word, a passing
From thy strange history.
Sometimes I seem to see thee rise,
A glorious child again;
All virtues beaming from thine
That ever honoured men:
Courage and truth, a generous
Where sinless sunshine lay:
A being whose very presence
Like gladsome summer-day.
O, fairly spread thy early sail,
And fresh, and pure, and free,
Was the first impulse of the
Which urged life's wave for thee!
Why did the pilot, too confiding,
Dream o'er that ocean's foam,
And trust in Pleasure's careless
To bring his vessel home?
For well he knew what dangers frowned,
What mists would gather, dim;
What rocks and shelves, and sands lay
Between his port and him.
The very brightness of the
The splendour of the main,
The wind which bore him wildly
Should not have warned in vain.
An anxious gazer from the shore—I marked the whitening wave,
And wept above thy fate the
Because—I could not save.
It recks not now, when all is over:
But yet my heart will beA mourner still, though friend and
Have both forgotten thee!
