On a lone sequestered mead,
Where silver-streamlets flow,
I saw a rose and lily twine,
And in love and beauty grow;
Again to that lone, peaceful spot,
From worldly cares I hied-
But the flowers that lately bloom'd so fair,
Had wither'd, drooped, and died!

Like love's young dream, they passed away,
With all their vernal bloom,
And they, who lately shone so fair,
Now moulder in the tomb!
But ere the minstrels left the bowers,
And to summer climes had fled,
They sang the dirge o'er fading flowers,
That by their stems lay dead.

Slumbering on its mother's breast
A beauteous infant lay,
The blush upon its dimpled cheek,
Was like a rose in May:
But the glow that tinged that cheek so fair,
Was but the transient bloom,
That brightens with the flitting breath-
A flow'ret of the tomb.

The infant oped its azure eyes,
And sweetly smiling, said,
'Mamma,' its gentle spirit ebbing,
Was numbered with the dead;
It laid its throbbing temples on
The mother's heaving breast,
And its gentle spirit pass'd to Heaven,
With angels bright to rest!

Lovely as the morning flowers,
That bloom so fresh and gay,
I saw a beauteous fair one decked
In the bridal's bright array;
But she, who had, at morning rise,
Exulted in her bloom,
Was doom'd ere evening's sun had set,
To grace the silent tomb.

Alas! that things so beautiful,
So soon must pass away,
And all of earth that's loveliest
Must moulder in the clay;
But well we know those charms so bright,
Which Heaven hath form'd in love,
Tho' ravaged by death's icy hand,
Shall bloom again above!