Forget the dead, the past? O yet

There are ghosts who may take revenge for it;

Memories that make the heart a tomb,

Regrets which glide through the spirit’s gloom

And with ghostly whisper tell

That joy, once lost, is pain.

—Shelley.

When the warring voice of storm is heard

Across the sea goes the summer bird,

But back again the wanderer flies

When April’s azure drapes the skies,

With carol sweet

The morn to greet,

But the radiant girl whom we deplore

To the bower of Home will return no more.

Decay, a loathsome bridegroom, now

Kisses with mildewed lip her brow;

Her heart is colder than the rill

When winter bids its tongue be still;

Yet Spring will come,

With song and bloom,

And unchain the silvery feet of waves,

But break no bonds in voiceless graves.

Wasting away with a sad decline,

Far from these northern hills of pine,

She would wander back to them in dreams,

To hear the roar of their rushing streams;

And often spoke

Of a favorite oak

On the door-sill flinging pleasant shade,

And under which, a child, she played.

When beat no more her snow-white breast,

Strange hands the lovely ruin-drest,

Smoothing, upon the forehead fair,

Loose, glittering flakes of golden hair;

And strangers gave

To our dead a grave,

Sprinkling above the frail remains

Mould, moistened by autumnal rains.

Ah! since she died a wilder wail

Is uttered by the midnight gale,

And voices, mourning something gone,

Rise from the dead leaves on the lawn;

And sadness broods

Above the woods

Moaning as if endowed with soul,

For through their depths she loved to stroll.

The lute that answered when she sung

Old airs, at twilight, is unstrung—

She wakes where the sainted dwell alone

An instrument of richer tone;

And angel’s smile

On her the while,

And to garland her sinless brow of snow

The rarest blossoms of Heaven bestow.