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keepsakes.
A simple cottage maid;
Yet well I loved the gentle child!
Like some fair floweret of the wild
Untrained, yet fragrant still, she smiled,
In native grace arrayed.
Yet well I loved the gentle child!
Like some fair floweret of the wild
Untrained, yet fragrant still, she smiled,
In native grace arrayed.
I long had known sweet Amy Lee,
As blithe as wild-bird, or as bee,
As meek as are the lilies white,
Which hide their petals from the light
Beneath their leaves of green;
As gentle as the young gazelle—
So fragile, yet beloved so well—
She seemed a thing that might not dwell
Where storms had ever been.
Twelve summers only had she known—
How swift their course was run!
So gaily, gladly had they flown,
We deemed them scarce begun.
Then came the blight upon our flower:
Consumption's fatal breath
Had doomed our rose-bud of an hour
To bend its head in death:
As blithe as wild-bird, or as bee,
As meek as are the lilies white,
Which hide their petals from the light
Beneath their leaves of green;
As gentle as the young gazelle—
So fragile, yet beloved so well—
She seemed a thing that might not dwell
Where storms had ever been.
Twelve summers only had she known—
How swift their course was run!
So gaily, gladly had they flown,
We deemed them scarce begun.
Then came the blight upon our flower:
Consumption's fatal breath
Had doomed our rose-bud of an hour
To bend its head in death:
