Love cannot call her back again,
But oh! it may presume
With ceaseless accents to complain,
All wildly near her tomb.
A madd'ning mirage of the mind
Still bids her image rise,
That form my heart can never find
Yet haunts my wearied eyes.
Since Earth received its earliest dead,
Man's sorrow has been vain;
Though useless were the tears they shed,
Still I will weep again.
The breast, that may its pangs conceal,
Is not from torture freed,
For still the wound, that will not heal,
Alas! must inly bleed.
Vain Sophist! ask no reason why
The love that cannot save,
Will hover with despairing cry
Around the dear ones grave.
Mine is not frenzy's sudden gust,
The passion of an hour,
Which sprinkles o'er beloved dust
Its brief though burning shower.
Then bid not me my tears to check,
The effort would but fail,
The face, I hid at custom's beck,
Would weep behind its veil.
The tree its blighted trunk will rear,
With sap and verdure gone,
And hearts may break, yet many a year
All brokenly live on.
Earth has no terror like the tomb
Which hides my darling's head,
Yet seeking her amid its gloom,
I grope among the dead.
And oh! could love restore that form
To its recovered grace,
How soon would it again grow warm
Within my wild embrace.