Death

Lift high the curtain's drooping fold.
And let the evening sunlight in;
I would not that my heart grew cold
Before its better years begin.
'T is well; at such an early hour,
So calm and pure, a sinking ray
Should shine into the heart, with power
To drive its darker thoughts away.
The bright, young thoughts of early days
Shall gather in my memory now,
And not the later cares, whose trace
Is stamp'd so deeply on my brow.
What though those days return no more?
The sweet remembrance is not vain,
For Heaven is waiting to restore
The childhood of my soul again.
Let no impatient mourner stand
In hollow sadness near my bed,
But let me rest upon the hand,
And let me hear that gentle tread
Of her, whose kindness long ago,
And still, unworn away by years,
Has made my weary eyelids flow
With grateful and admiring tears.
I go, but let no plaintive tone
The moment's grief of friendship tell;
And let no proud and graven stone
Say where the weary slumbers well.
A few short hours, and then for heaven!
Let sorrow all its tears dismiss;
For who would mourn the warning given
Which calls us from a world like this?