Elegy on the Poet’s Wife
The gulls that twitter on the rush-grown shore
When fall the shades of night,
That o’er the waves in loving pairs do soar
When shines the morning light—
’Tis said e’en these poor birds delight
To nestle each beneath his darling’s wing
That, gently fluttering,
Through the dark hours wards off the hoar-frost’s might.
Like to the stream that finds
The downward path it never may retrace,
Like to the shapeless winds,
Poor mortals pass away without a trace:—
So she I love has left her place,
And, in a corner of my widowed couch,
Wrapped in the robe she wove me,
I must crouch,
Far from her fond embrace.
Nibi.