Page:The Hundred Best Poems (lyrical) in the English language - second series.djvu/60

  Thy day without a cloud hath passed, And thou wert lovely to the last; Extinguished, not decayed; As stars that shoot along the sky Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep, My tears might well be shed, To think I was not near to keep One vigil o'er thy bed; To gaze, how fondly! on thy face, To fold thee in a faint embrace, Uphold thy drooping head; And show that love, however vain, Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain, Though thou hast left me free, The loveliest things that still remain, Than thus remember thee! The all of thine that cannot die Through dark and dread Eternity Returns again to me, And more thy buried love endears Than aught, except its living years.

 22.

BRIGHT be the place of thy soul! No lovelier spirit than thine  38