He came:
As red-lipt rosebuds in the Summer come:
A tiny angel, let from Heav'n to roam,
With laughing love to clothe our childless home
The God-sent cherub came.
He lived
One little hour; What bliss was in the space!
Our lives that day were fringed with fresher grace
And in the casket of our darling's face
What honeyed hopes were hived.
He droopt:
And o'er our souls a mighty sorrow swept,
With many fears the night-long watch we kept,
Tearful and sad: Yet even as we wept
Our star-faced beauty droopt.
He died:
And darksome grew our life's bright morning sun.
Gloomy the day so radiantly begun.
What joy, what joy, without our darling one,
Is all the world beside?
Tis past:
The perfumed rosebud of our life is dead:
Helpless we bend, and mourn the cherub fled,
Even as the bruisëd reed bends low its head
Before the cruel blast.