White-robed, in her little coffin
Our only darling lay,
The flowers we had strewed above her
Were fading like her away
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But the watching, and the anguish,
And the suffering were over now,
And peace that might never be broken
Slept on her marble brow.
I felt that the hand of mercy
Had laid her to rest at last,
And yet, as I gazed upon her,
The stream of my grief flowed fast
For I knew that to-morrow morning
I might look no more on that face,
And the dust that we loved so dearly
Must be borne to its resting-place.
But He who comforts the mourner
With more than a mother’s love,
Sent me that night through the darkness
A vision of light from above.
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He has taken my garment of sadness,
And clothed me with praise instead ;
And now I rejoice for the living,
Rather than weep for the dead.
When the sweet bells of the cowslip among the grass are
springing,
And through the opening elm leaves the breezes gently
blow,
Like summer birds returning, across the blue sea winging,
So back again to memory come the scenes of long ago.
Thoughts of a far-off springtime, when life was yet before us;
And if some passing sorrows within our pathway lay,
They were like the quivering shadows of the hazels bending
o’er us,
When we we wandered through the copses on that bright
May-day.
There was beauty all around us, for the flowers were freshly
blooming,
With the rose tints of the lychnis, and the hyacinth’s deep
blue,
And the starlight of the primrose, the shady banks illuming,
And the violet and ground-ivy alike in azure hue.
There was gladness all around us, for the merry thrush was
singing,
In chorus with the blackbird, to the blackcap’s roundelay;
Among the distant orchards the cuckoo’s note was ringing,
When we wandered through the copses on that sweet May-
day.
The woodpecker laughed loud, within the wood-depths hiding;
The nightingale had come to its summer home again;
The small birds gaily sang, through the tangled thicket gliding—
The redstart and the titmouse, the chaffinch and the wren.
The joyous lark was soaring above the cowslip meadow,
Where the buttercups and daisies like gold and silver lay;
No scorching in the sunshine, no gloom was in the shadow,
When we wandered through the copses on that sweet May-day.
But since we trod those wood-paths, so blithesome and light-hearted,
With all their cares and sorrows now fifty years have passed,
And they, who then were with me, have one by one departed
Unto the better country, and I am left—the last.
Perhaps, in heavenly places, no kindred tie forgetting,
They watch us in our journeyings, with angel-vision clear,
And say to one another, "Their sun is near its setting,
The shadows are fast lengthening, and they will soon be here.”