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Henry Kirk White

Yes, fled already is thy vital fire,
  And the fair promise of thy early bloom
  Lost, in youth’s morn extinct; sunk in the tomb;
Mute in the grave sleeps thy enchanted lyre!
And is it vainly that our souls aspire?
  Falsely does the presaging heart presume
  That we shall live beyond life’s cares and gloom;
Grasps it eternity with high desire,
But to imagine bliss, feel woe, and die;
  Leaving survivors to worse pangs than death?
    Not such the sanction of the Eternal Mind.
The harmonious order of the starry sky,
  And awful revelation’s angel breath,
    Assure these hopes their full effect shall find.


25th December, 1806.

Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White | Written c. 1806

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