The Gift: a Christmas and New Year's Present for 1842 || archive.org
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EARLY DEATH.
BY MISS M. MILES.
'Here a vain love to passing flowers
Thou gav'st; but where thou art,
The sway is not with changeful hours,
There love and death must part.'
SHE loved the merry spring-time,
Its gay and sunny hours,
The glad song of its bright birds,
Its wealth of buds and flowers;
The gushing of its fountains,
Its sunset's lingering ray,
And the golden cloud that floated
So silently away!
She loved the fair, and beautiful,
And fleeting things of earth;
Whilst gladness, as a spell, was flung
O'er her spirit and her path!
And 'neath the sky's blue canopy
She dearly loved to roam;
Where she could steal some wild-wood sweet
From out its forest home.
Life was to her one fairy dream,
No cloud upon her brow,
And as the chime of some sweet bells
Her laughter's silvery flow;
And yet so beautiful she bent
In prayer, at morn and even,
She seem'd some angel messenger,
To point the way to heaven!
We guarded her with changeless love;
But ever, day by day,
We saw her step grow faltering,
Her bright smile pass away!
The rose-tint fade upon her cheek,
The light of her blue eye
Grow dim, ere we could give her up,
And feel that she could die!
She died! when bud and blossom
Were bursting into bloom;
And the bird she loved was singing,
As we bore her to the tomb;
But though the 'silver cord' was loosed,
We bow'd beneath the rod,
And felt a spirit purified
Was resting with its God!
But now, the merry spring-time
To me comes fraught with sadness,
Where erst, of old, it only bore
The radiant tinge of gladness;
But still, whene'er the pale sweet stars
Come forth so fair at even,
I love to steal, and hold commune
With that angel girl in heaven.
Boston.
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The epigraph is from
THE GRAVE OF A POETESS
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Records of Woman: With Other Poems.
by Felicia Hemans. 1828
The Poetical Works of Mrs. Felicia Hemans:
Complete in One Volume, with a Critical Preface. 1836
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