THE MOURNER, a poem

A Figure Weeping over a Grave (1827 or 1829)
by George Richmond
Image from The Met

"'TIS over—all over!" the mourner said.
"My love, in the grave of my love, lies dead:
Barren of bloom as yon wintry tree,
Lifeless and chill, is the heart of me!

"I shall smile no more: a tale that is told
Is the rapture of being.  Now would I were old,
Who wearying years would no longer see
Stretching away unendingly!

"What value has Time?  The last to-morrow
For me will hold but the one, one sorrow
Which, lone, I still shall endure, forlorn
As the bird that, above me, its mate doth mourn."
·            ·            ·            ·            ·            ·
Full wearily wasted the months; and still
Guarding his grief with a constant will,
It chanced that the mourner, one halcyon day,
Wandering sadly the self-same way,

Beheld, half doubting, the wintry tree
A bower of blossom—a thing to see!—
And heard with emotion the sad bird sing:—
"O beauty! O love! O delight!—It is Spring!"

"The Mourner" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (May 1914).