When death, or adverse fortune’s ruthless gale,
Tears our best hopes away, the wounded heart
Exhausted, leans on all that can impart
The sympathetic charm; its mutual wail
Sooths the sick soul. Ah! never can it fail
To balm our bleeding grief’s severest smart;
Nor wholly vain feign’d Pity’s solemn art,
Tho’ we should penetrate her sable veil.
Concern, e’en known to be assum’d, our pains
Respecting, kinder welcome far acquires
Than cold neglect, or mirth that grief profanes.
Thus each faint glow-worm of the night conspires,
Gleaming along the moss’d and darken’d lanes,
To cheer the gloom with her unreal fires.