By Mrs. R. Hyneman
When the sad, moaning winds of midnight, sighing,
Fall on the ear with a low, wailing tone,
And find an echo in the heart, replying
To their wild music’s melancholy moan,
Then will we think of thee.
When the pale leaves of autumn’s woods are falling,
Telling that such is man’s frail, brief career,
Our hearts will fancy thy sweet voice is calling
From those sad relics of the dying year,
And tears will fall for thee.
<<438>>And when the first faint blossoms of the spring
Shall rouse our spirits by their beauteous bloom,
Each little leaflet’s secret whispering
Shall bear a message from the solemn tomb,
Bidding us think of thee.
Thy spirit loved to hold communion sweet
With bud, and falling leaf, and midnight wind;
And each henceforth our chastened hearts shall greet
As a loved token of thy gifted mind,
Thus will we think of thee.
Broken for ever is the golden bowl
From which thy spirit drank its draught of life;
The silver cord is loosened from thy soul,
And thou art free from earthly care and strife,
From sin and misery.
We cannot mourn for thee, as one whose lot
Was but to bloom for a brief hour below,
Then sink into the grave and be forgot.
The cold, unthinking world can never know
How much we mourn for thee.
Thou wert a stranger unto us; thy name
Alone was wafted o’er the Atlantic wave,
But true hearts mourn’d thy loss when tidings came
That thou wert in the cold and silent grave,
Ay, true hearts grieved for thee.
Rest, gentle minstrel! Other hands may wreathe
A fairer garland on some future day;
But true and fervent are the thoughts that breathe
Within our hearts, and prompt this simple lay,
That tells our grief for thee.
