Thou hast passed from life, and thou knowest it not;
The light is quenched in thine eyes, I wot;
Thy rose-red mouth, it is wan and sere,
And thou art dead, my poor dead dear!
One summer night, myself I saw
Thee laid in earth with a shuddering awe;
The nightingales fluted low, dirge-like lays,
And the stars came out on thy bier to gaze.
As the mourning train through the wood defiles,
Their litany peals up the branching aisles;
The pine-trees, in funeral mantles dressed,
Moan prayers for the soul that is gone to rest.
And as by the mountain tarn we wound,
The elves were dancing a fairy round;
They stopped, and they seemed, though startled thus,
With looks of pity to gaze at us.
And when we came to thy lone earth bed,
The moon came down from the heaven o'erhead.
She spoke of the lost one. A sob, a stound!
And the bells in the far-away distance sound.