Our sorrows past shall be our pride,
When with each other vying:
Thou wilt confide in him, who lives
Upon thy truth relying.
OH SAY NOT 'TWERE A KEENER BLOW.
OH say not 'twere a keener blow,
To lose a child of riper years,
You cannot know a father's wo-
You cannot dry a father's tears;
The girl who rears a sickly plant,
Or cherishes a wounded dove,
Will love them most while most they want
The watchfulness of love!
Time must have changed that fair young brow,
Time might have changed that spotless heart;
Years might have brought deceit,—but now
In love's confiding dawn we part!
Ere pain and grief had sown decay,
My babe is cradled in the tomb,—
Like some fair blossom torn away
In all its purest bloom.