Poems (Toke)/To the redbreast

by Emma Toke

TO THE REDBREAST.

ING on, sweet bird! thy plaintive tone
 Falls sweet yet mournful o'er the ear,
For now, alas! thy notes alone
 Are heard to wail the dying year.

That year is trembling on the verge
 Of long past Time's unfathomed deep,
With thy sad voice to sound her dirge,
 While sinking to her last long sleep.

She must away!—her hour is come!
 She only waits her midnight knell;
And then departs to seek the tomb
 Where ages past in darkness dwell.

And though, save thine, each voice is gone,
 Which swelled for her when glad and gay,
Still, faithful bird, thou warblest on,
 To mourn yet cheer her dying day.

As sweet as then thy wild notes fall,
 Though all around is sad and drear,
And swiftly Nature's shadowy pall
 Is closing round another year.

Another year, another year!
 Canst thou, departed one, be fled?
And is there left but memory's tear
 For thee, thy hopes, thy fears, thy dread?

Alas! no more; thy bygone days
 No mortal eye again can see:
And lo! the sun's departing rays
 Now brightly beam their last for thee.

Yet mayst thou linger, till the gloom
 Of midnight tells thy day is done:
Then torchlight stars shall light thee home;
 Thou must depart! thy race is run.

Farewell, thou mother year; thy doom
 Is nearly sealed: yet mayst thou see
Thy daughter rising from thy tomb,
 To dawn, to pass, to die like thee!

Her shadowy form now greets our sight,
 But none her onward course can see;
No eve, save One, can pierce the night
 Which mantles dark futurity.

But oh! whate'er our span may prove,
 In that dim future yet afar,
May Heaven's unfading lamp of love
 Shine o'er us as our guiding star.

Yes; may each ever-circling year
 Find us, as swift it passes o'er,
More meet for that celestial sphere,
 Where Time itself shall be no more.

E.

December 31, 1834.