Inania Munera

Ah ! why should pity wet my bier,
And give my corse her tardy tear,
And the same eye that coldly slew me,
With tears untimely warm bedew me '?
Alas ! for harm is fleet as wind,
And healing ever lags behind.

Perhaps, when life well nigh is spent,
She'll faintly smile a sad consent, —
And, just before she sees me die,
Will leave a kind repentant sigh :
For sigh of ruth — Oh, wayward fate ! —
Will ever come — and come too late.
She cannot undo what is done ;
For, if a smile were like the sun,
And sighs more sweet than gales that creep
O'er rosy beds where fairies sleep,
And every tear like summer rain
To thirsty fields — 'twere all in vain.
For never sun so bright was seen
Could make a leaf that's sere be green ;
Nor spicy gale, nor April shower,
Restore to bloom a faded flower :
Thus sun, and wind, and balmy rain,
And smiles, and sighs, and tears, are vain.