The Adieu

Moravians their minstrelsy bring
The death-bed with music to smooth;
So you, lovely comforter, sing
My pangs of departure to soothe!

You sing — but my silent adieu
A sorrow still keener will prove;
You lose but one friend who loves you,
How many I lose whom I love!

When we go from each pleasure refined,
Which the sense or the soul can receive,
With no hope in our wanderings to find
One ray of the sunshine we leave:

An adieu should in utterance die,
Or if written, but faintly appear;
Only heard thro' the burst of a sigh.
Only read thro' the blot of a tear!