Note Back to Main Text — BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART
Reading edition
"When youthful faith has fled, Of loving take thy leave; Be constant to the dead, The dead cannot deceive. "Sweet, modest flowers of spring, How fleet your balmy day! And man's brief year can bring No secondary May. "No earthly burst again Of gladness out of gloom; Fond hope and vision vain, Ungrateful to the tomb! "But 't is an old belief, That on some solemn shore, Beyond the sphere of grief, Dear friends will meet once more. "Beyond the sphere of time, And sin, and fate's control, Serene in changeless prime Of body and of soul. "That creed I fain would keep, That hope I'll not forego; Eternal be the sleep, Unless to waken so."[9]