The girl who rears a sickly plant,

Or cherishes a wounded dove,

Will love them most while most they want
The watchfulness of love!

Time must have changed that fair young brow,
Time might have changed that spotless heart;
Years might have brought deceit, but now
In love's confiding dawn we part!
Ere pain and grief had sown decay,
My babe is cradled in the tomb,-
Like some fair blossom torn away
In all its purest bloom.