On the Death of a Lovely Girl, Five Years Old

On the Death of a Lovely Girl, Five Years Old

Sweet little flower, thy bloom is fled,

Thy tender leaves are pale and dead,

And scatter'd, (once so rosy red,)

O'er the cold tomb.

Around thee now in vain may beam
The summer's ray, or winter's gleam;
No sun can pierce the slumberer's dream,

In earth's dark womb.

But yet on thee a sun shall rise,
More glorious than these earthly skies,
E'er dipp'd in heaven's aerial dies,

Or beauty's ray.

A light, that on thy spirit breaking,
From death's embrace in bliss awaking,
Shall bid it, every care forsaking,

Rise into day.

Then why the night of sorrow here.
That darkens round they early bier;
And e'er thy memory sheds the tear

Of vain regret?

We should not mourn the closing flower,
Whose petals shun the nightly hour;
But open to that orb, whose power

Can never set

Unattributed (Eleanor Dickinson)

1:4, p. 31

1829.08.07