I LOVE to listen to the murmured song
Of zephyrs reveling over beds of flowers;
Their airy music, as it floats along,
Speaks to my heart of past and hallowed hours
When that sweet rainbow of my life -- our boy --
Solaced each care, and heightened every joy.
Brilliant in beauty as the humming-bird
When its soft plumage glitters in the sun;
Blithe as the lambkin of the snowy herd --
As gentle, too, was our lamented one!
Merry laugh still echoes in mine ear;
His fairy footsteps still I seem to hear!
And can it be? Oh! is it not a dream,
That he has left forever earth's fair scene?
He that was so loved, so beauteous, so bright!
Who to my soul was breath, was life, was light!
In the dark tomb has that dear form been laid?
Was't by his bier we knelt, and wept, and prayed,
While funeral rite and psalm, at twilight dim,
Were said and chanted, O my God! o'er him?
'Twas even so! Death claimed him for his own,
And made me desolate, heart-stricken, lone
Now oft, like Cain, I feel as if my share
Of earthly woe is more than I can bear.
Now, soon to rest within that deep, cold grave,
Where sleeps my child so still! is all I crave,
Till the last trump shall peal along the skies,
And the awakened, conscious dead arise!
Then, in communion sacred, blest, and sweet,
Our angel cherub we again shall meet.