The Past

Waking or asleep, thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep than we mortals
Than we mortals dream
We look before and after
And pine for what's not our sincerest laughter

Waking or asleep, thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep than we mortals dream
We look before and after, and pine for what's not
Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught

Will thou now forget the happy hours
Which we buried in Love's
In Love's sweet bowers
Heaping over their corpses so cold
Blossoms and leaves, instead of the mold?

Forget the dead and the past? Oh, yet
There are ghosts that may take revenge for it
Memories that make the cold heart a tomb
Regrets which glide through the spirit's gloom

Waking or asleep, thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep than we mortals
Than we mortals dream
We look before and after
And pine for what's not our sincerest laughter