The song is sad which thou hast sung:
Is sad!—how canst thou know—
The loved, the lovely, and the young—
A single touch of wo.
Ah, yes! the fire is in thy breast,
The seal upon thy brow,
Life has no calm, no listless rest,
For such a one as thou;—
Thou, blending in thy harp and heart
The passionate, the wild,
The softness of the woman’s part,
The sweetness of the child;
With feelings like the fine lute-strings,
A single touch will break;
With hopes that wear an angel's wings,
And make the heaven they seek.
The stern, the selfish, and the cold,
With feelings all represt—
The many cast in one base mould,
For them life yields her best:
They plod upon one even way,
Till time, not life, is o'er;
Death cannot make them colder clay
Than what they were before.
But thou—go ask thy lute what fate
May for thy future be,
And it will tell thee tears await
The path of one like thee:
Too sensitive, like early flowers,
One unkind breath to bear,
What in this weary world of ours,
But tears can be thy share?
Yet little would I that such words
Of prophecy were sooth;
I am so used to mournful chords,
To me they sound like truth.
