The Child’s First Grief

‘Oh, call my brother back to me!
I cannot play alone;
The summer comes with flower and bee—
Where is my brother gone?

‘The butterfly is glancing bright
Across the sunbeam’s track;
I care not now to chase its flight—
Oh, call my brother back!

‘The flowers run wild—the flowers we sow’d
Around our garden tree;
Our vine is drooping with its load—
Oh, call him back to me!’

‘He could not hear thy voice, fair child,
He may not come to thee;
The face that once like spring-time smiled,
On earth no more thou’lt see.

‘A rose’s brief bright life of joy,
Such unto him was given;
Go—thou must play alone, my boy!
Thy brother is in heaven!’

’And has he left his birds and flowers,
And must I call in vain?
And, through the long, long summer hours,
Will he not come again?

‘And by the brook, and in the glade,
Are all our wanderings o’er?
Oh, while my brother with me play’d,
Would I had loved him more!’