Now in the solitude of night Oh! tell to me my soul: Why has that spirit taken flight, Who was to thee thy one delight Above the world's control. She came to thee in early life A spirit all divine, And often in the headlong strife, Where grief, and pain, and death were rife, Her peace was ever thine. Upon the tempest-ridden sea When danger round thee rose, She seemed to beckon unto thee From life to immortality, From labor to repose. Among the summer islands where Bright flowers perennial bloom, She sat beside thee, ever fair, And with her songs dispell'd the care That wrapt thee oft in gloom. But, Oh! my soul, she now has fled To some more worthy breast; The happy light her presence shed Now gathers round a dearer head Than thine, O! thing unblest! She was so dear—so very dear— When she was all thine own, That now, when she no more is near, No ruin could be half so drear As thou, poor soul, alone! Shall I again thro' summer isles, Or o'er the wintry sea, Or in the halls where beauty wiles, Where laughing phantoms kill with smiles, Go seek her out for thee? "Ah, no! thou wilt not find her so," My lonely soul replies, "But if thou would'st the secret know, Upon some quiet moment go, And look in Mary's eyes." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SHPEHERD'S HOUR by PAUL VERLAINE SUMMER'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT: A LITANY IN TIME OF PLAGUE by THOMAS NASHE TO DR. AIKIN ON HIS COMPLAINING THAT SHE NEGLECTED HIM by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD TO THE BELGIANS by LAURENCE BINYON ETERNITY by GRACE GRISWOLD BISBY TO A LADY, WITH A PAIR OF DRINKING GLASSES by ROBERT BURNS |