TO ANOTHER LADY.
(Written in her sixteenth year.)
I have told a maiden of hours of grief;
Of a bleeding heart, of a joyless life;
I have read her a tale of future woe;
I have marked her a pathway of sorrow below;
I have read on the page of her blooming cheek,
A darker doom than my tongue dare speak.
Now, maiden, for thee, I will turn mine eye
To a brighter path through futurity.
The clouds shall pass from thy brow away,
And bright be the closing of life's long day;
The storms shall murmur in silence to sleep,
And angels around thee their watches shall keep;
Thou shall live in the sunbeams of love and delight,
And thy life shall flow on till it fades into night;
And the twilight of age shall come quietly on;
Thou wilt feel, yet regret not, that daylight hath flown;
For the shadows of evening shall melt o'er thy soul,
And the soft dreams of Heaven around thee shall roll,
Till sinking in sweet, dreamless slumber to rest,
In the arms of thy loved one, still blessing and blest,
Thy soul shall glide on to its harbour in Heaven,
Every tear wiped away — every error forgiven.