167 
Why mourn, dear girl, each passing year? 
Why dread the sobering touch of time? 
As if all bliss to mortals dear, 
Thoughts which ennoble, hopes which cheer, 
Fled with our prime. 
Look up ! this calm autumnal day 
May want the joyousness of spring; 
But never did capricious May 
Such kindly warmth, such steadfast ray, 
O’er nature fling. 
What though the leaves, now changed in hue, 
Bestrew our path where’er we turn, 
If yonder “ heaven’s delicious blue,” 
Through the thinrid bough we clearer view, 
Ah ! who would mourn ? 
And see, I’ve brought a little flower, 
No lingerer it of summer’s train; 
Like vesper star to eve’s dim hour, 
It comes to deck pale autumn’s bower, 
And leaf-strewn plain. 
m 4 
