Dear, parted one, Friend of my better years, dark months have passed With all their awful shadows o’er the earth, Since this green turf was laid above thy rest, ’Mid sighs and streaming tears and stifled groans, But oh! thy gentle memory is not dim In the deep hearts that loved thee. We have set This sweet young rose-tree o’er thy hallowed grave, And may the skies shed their serenest dews Around it, may the summer clouds distil Their gentlest rains upon it, may the fresh Warm zephyrs fan it with their softest breath, And daily may the bright and holy beams Of morning greet it with their sweetest smile, That it may wave its roses o’er thy dust, Dear emblems of the flowers that thou so oft In life didst fling upon our happy hearts From thy own spirit’s Eden. Yet we know ’Tis but an humble offering to thee, Who dwellest where the fadeless roses bloom, In heaven’s eternal sunshine. To our eyes Thy beauty has not faded from the earth; We see it in the flowers that lift their lids To greet the early spring-time—in the bow The magic pencil of the sunshine paints Upon the flying rain-clouds—in the stars That glitter from the blue abyss of night— And in the strange mysterious loveliness Of every holy sunset. To our ears The music of thy loved tones is not lost; We hear it in the low, sweet cadences Of wave and stream and fountain, in the notes Of birds that from the sky and forest hail The sunrise with their songs, and in the wild And soul-like breathings of the evening wind O’er all the thousand sweet Eolian lyres Of grove and forest. Yet no sight or sound In all the world of nature is as sweet, Dear, lost Virginia, as when thou wast here To gaze and listen with us. The young flowers And the pure stars seem pale and cold and dim, As if they looked through blinding tears—alas! The tears are in our eyes. The melodies Of wave and stream and bird and forest-harp, Borne on the soft wings of the evening gale, Seem blended with a deep wail for the dead— Alas! the wail is in our hearts.