  If I could weep with customary wo, I, that have seen the good Borne on the rending flood, And mark'd the thing most loved the first to go; I that have seen the beautiful, the cherish'd, The earliest to depart; 'Twould bring unto my heart A pang like that I've felt when dearer things have perish'd. To see thee now, so innocent and sweet, Bud of the breathing morn, From life's young bosom torn, Doom'd, in thy properest bloom, the sudden stroke to meet; And, with an idle interest, I had prayed The doom for sterner heads, And colder climes and beds, Such as may better meet the tempest and the shade. Yet could such prayer avail, and the stern doom But spare this sweetest flower, The blight would lose its power, For in this blessed safety all would bloom. A mortal hand had never snapp'd its stem, Nor with an eye to mark, Its white amid the dark, Have trampled down to dust so rich a gem. Its doom, to us so dread, was writ on high, Where glories richer yet, In brighter circles set, Make it of little count when such as this must die. Though to thyself no loss—thy loss to know— How much was thy delight, How lovely to the sight, Might make the fate go weep that dooms thee so. E. |
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