Anna Seward

Sonnet 46. Dark as the silent stream beneath the night

Dark as the silent stream beneath the night,
    Thy funeral glides to Life's eternal home,
    Child of its narrow house!—how late the bloom,
    The facile smile, the soft eye's crystal light,
Each grace of Youth's gay morn, that charms our sight,
    Play'd o'er that Form!—now sunk in Death's cold gloom,
    Insensate! ghastly!—for the yawning tomb,
    Alas! fit Inmate.—Thus we mourn the blight
Of Virgin-Beauty, and endowments rare
    In their glad hours of promise.—O! when Age
    Drops, like the o'er-blown, faded rose, tho' dear
Its long known worth, no stormy sorrows rage;
    But swell when we behold, unsoil'd by time,
    Youth's broken Lily perished in its prime.