But ask not, hope not, one relenting thought
From him who doomed thee thus to waste away;
Whose heart, with sullen, speechless vengeance fraught,
Broods in dark triumph o'er thy slow decay,
And coldly, sternly, silently can trace
The gradual withering of each youthful grace.
And yet the day of vain remorse shall come,
When thou, bright victim! on his dreams shalt rise
As an accusing angel—and thy tomb,
A martyr's shrine, be hallowed in his eyes!
Then shall thine innocence his bosom wring,
More than thy fancied guilt with jealous pangs could sting.
Liſt thy meek eyes to heaven—for all on earth,
Young sufferer! fades before thee. Thou art lone—
Hope, fortune, love, smiled brightly on thy birth,
Thine hour of death is all affliction's own!
It is our task to suffer, and our fate
To learn that mighty lesson—soon or late.
The season's glory fades—the vintage-lay
Through joyous Italy resounds no more;
But mortal loveliness hath passed away,
Fairer than aught in summer's glowing store.
Beauty and youth are gone; behold them such
As death hath made them with his blighting touch![1]
The summer's breath came o'er them—and they died!
Softly it came, to give luxuriance birth;
Called forth young Nature in her festal pride,
And bore to them their summons from the earth!
Again shall blow that mild, delicious breeze,
And wake to life and light all flowers but these.
No sculptured urn, nor verse thy virtues telling,
O lost and loveliest one! adorns thy grave,
But o'er that humble cypress-shaded dwelling
The dew-drops glisten, and the wild flowers wave—
Emblems more meet, in transient light and bloom,
For thee who thus did'st pass in brightness to the tomb![2]
- ↑ "La voilà, telle que la mort nous l'a faite"
Bossuet's Funeral Oration on the Princess Henrietta. - ↑ This poem was written several years since, and intended for immediate publication, but withheld, on account of a coincidence of subject between its story and one chosen about the same time by a popular writer.
