Classic Poem

AND THE INCAPACITY OF SHEDDING THEM WHEN I HAD LOST MY DEAREST MOTHER AT AN ADVANCED PERIOD OF MY OWN LIFE .

I COVET not, though " full of years, "
The fugitive and passing tears;
Those light and perishable dews,
Which Youth forgets, till it renews.
Mine is the tear which cannot weep —
The sigh that 's mute — the shaft that 's deep.
Nor would I change these pensive hours
For April suns, through April showers.

Though anguish of the heart is mine
Despair itself it can refine;
Proud is the elevated grief,
And scorns the insult of relief;
Doom'd a lost jewel to deplore,
Which to the light returns no more;
It lifts the soul, above the earth,
To the pure temple of its birth;
Unites me to a Saint above,
And with Devotion tempers Love .