The world is bright before thee,
Its summer flowers are thine,
Its calm, blue sky is o’er thee,
Thy bosom pleasure’s shrine;
And thine the sunbeam given,
To nature’s morning hour,
Pure, warm, as when from heaven
It burst on Eden’s bower.
There is a song of sorrow,
The death-dirge of the gay,
That tells, ere dawn of morrow,
These charms may melt away,
That sun’s bright beam be shaded,
That sky be blue no more,
The summer flowers be faded,
And youth’s warm promise o’er.
Believe it not, though lonely
Thy evening home may be;
Though beauty’s bark can only
Float on a summer sea;
Though time thy bloom is stealing,
There’s still beyond his art
The wild-flower wreath of feeling,
The sunbeam of the heart.
In Memory of Joseph Rodman Drake.
Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days!
None knew thee but to love thee,
Nor named thee but to praise.
Tears fell when thou wert dying,
From eyes unused to weep,
And long, where thou art lying,
Will tears the cold turf steep.
When hearts whose truth was proven,
Like thine, are laid in earth,
There should a wreath be woven
To tell the world their worth;
And I, who woke each morrow
To clasp thy hand in mine,
Who shared thy joy and sorrow,
Whose weal and woe were thine,—
It should be mine to braid it
Around thy faded brow,
But I’ve in vain essayed it,
And feel I cannot now.
While memory bids me weep thee,
Nor thoughts nor words are free,
The grief is fixed too deeply
That mourns a man like thee.
There are some happy moments in this lone
And desolate world of ours, that well repay
The toil of struggling through it, and atone
For many a long, sad night and weary day.
They come upon the mind like some wild air
Of distant music, when we know not where,
Or whence, the sounds are brought from, and their power,
Though brief, is boundless.