And thou art dead, as young and fair
\nAs aught of mortal birth;
\nAnd form so soft, and charms so rare,
\nToo soon return’d to Earth!
\nThough Earth receiv’d them in her bed,
\nAnd o’er the spot the crowd may tread
\nIn carelessness or mirth,
\nThere is an eye which could not brook
\nA moment on that grave to look.<\/p>\n
I will not ask where thou liest low,
\nNor gaze upon the spot;
\nThere flowers or weeds at will may grow,
\nSo I behold them not:
\nIt is enough for me to prove
\nThat what I lov’d, and long must love,
\nLike common earth can rot;
\nTo me there needs no stone to tell,
\n‘T is Nothing that I lov’d so well.<\/p>\n
Yet did I love thee to the last
\nAs fervently as thou,
\nWho didst not change through all the past,
\nAnd canst not alter now.
\nThe love where Death has set his seal,
\nNor age can chill, nor rival steal,
\nNor falsehood disavow:
\nAnd, what were worse, thou canst not see
\nOr wrong, or change, or fault in me.<\/p>\n
The better days of life were ours;
\nThe worst can be but mine:
\nThe sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
\nShall never more be thine.
\nThe silence of that dreamless sleep
\nI envy now too much to weep;
\nNor need I to repine
\nThat all those charms have pass’d away,
\nI might have watch’d through long decay.<\/p>\n
The flower in ripen’d bloom unmatch’d
\nMust fall the earliest prey;
\nThough by no hand untimely snatch’d,
\nThe leaves must drop away:
\nAnd yet it were a greater grief
\nTo watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
\nThan see it pluck’d to-day;
\nSince earthly eye but ill can bear
\nTo trace the change to foul from fair.<\/p>\n
I know not if I could have borne
\nTo see thy beauties fade;
\nThe night that follow’d such a morn
\nHad worn a deeper shade:
\nThy day without a cloud hath pass’d,
\nAnd thou wert lovely to the last,
\nExtinguish’d, not decay’d;
\nAs stars that shoot along the sky
\nShine brightest as they fall from high.<\/p>\n
As once I wept, if I could weep,
\nMy tears might well be shed,
\nTo think I was not near to keep
\nOne vigil o’er thy bed;
\nTo gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
\nTo fold thee in a faint embrace,
\nUphold thy drooping head;
\nAnd show that love, however vain,
\nNor thou nor I can feel again.<\/p>\n