Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1793–1835)

THEY grew in beauty side by side,

They fill’d one home with glee;—

Their graves are sever’d far and wide,

By mount, and stream, and sea.

The same fond mother bent at night

O’er each fair sleeping brow:

She had each folded flower in sight—

Where are those dreamers now?

One, ’midst the forests of the West,

By a dark stream is laid—

The Indian knows his place of rest,

Far in the cedar-shade.

The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one—

He lies where pearls lie deep;

He was the loved of all, yet none

O’er his low bed may weep.

One sleeps where Southern vines are drest

Above the noble slain:

He wrapt his colours round his breast

On a blood-red field of Spain.

And one—o’er her the myrtle showers

Its leaves, by soft winds fann’d;

She faded ’midst Italian flowers—

The last of that bright band.

And parted thus they rest, who play’d

Beneath the same green tree;

Whose voices mingled as they pray’d

Around one parent knee;

They that with smiles lit up the hall,

And cheer’d with song the hearth!—

Alas, for love! if thou wert all.

And naught beyond, O Earth!