Margaret Love Peacock

Long night succeeds thy little day:
O, blighted blossom! can it be
That this gray stone and grassy clay
Have closed our anxious care of thee?

The half-form'd speech of artless thought,
That spoke a mind beyond thy years,
The song, the dance by Nature taught,
The sunny smiles, the transient tears,

The symmetry of face and form,
The eye with light and life replete,
The little heart so fondly warm,
The voice so musically sweet,--

These, lost to hope, in memory yet
Around the hearts that loved thee cling,
Shadowing with long and vain regret
The too fair promise of thy Spring.