Slow lingering months with swifter pace move on—
Let this dark winter of my life be past;
This cloud athwart the sky of summer thrown—
Whose gloom and darkness on my heart is cast.

Parted—Death's deep, dark river rolls between;
Those talks and rambled when the day was done
And now among the things that once have been,
And I am left in sadness here alone!

Parted! Oh, me, he is for ever gone!
How hopeless now the sunset's golden ray;
How far off seem those joys we both have known,
How cheerless look the paths we used to stray!

Just when the autumn days grew short and chill,
When all its sunny hours seemed past and o'er,
And moaning winds swept wildly o'er the hill,
Like some sere leaf he fell, to rise no more.

The spring shall come, and leaves grow green again,
And vernal beauty to the earth return;
Sunshine and flowers shall deck the hill and plane,
And birds awake with song to greet the morn.

But he has flown far from our wintry sphere,
Where fadeless summer glads the spring-bright clime;
Not where the tempest clouds spread grief and fear,
But safely moored beyond the waves of time!

Mine is the weeping—his the blissful change;
Mine is the waiting—his the sighed-for peace;
Mine through these dreary, lingering years to range,
until I find a land where partings cease.