MUST be thy .grief, Duperrier, unending,

Or what the sad mind enfold,

The uttered thoughts a father's love is sending,

Be a tale that is never told ?

By our mortal lot thy daughter tom bward driven—

Is such exceeding pain

A labyrinth from whence thy thoughts grief-riven

Find not their way again ?

I, being most mindful of her girlhood's charm,

To assuage thy sufferings

Have tried not, like a friend who'd cause thee harm,

To gauge them but slight things.

Seen in a world which to fairest shapes is giving

Still the most heavy of dooms,

A rose, hers was the roses' span of living

Which one brief morn consumes.

Death shows a harshness no other sway imposes :

Vain to implore her ears,

For these the cruel goddess straightway closes

And leaves us to our tears.

The cottager whose roof the wheat-straw yielded

Her stern decree awaits ;

And from her power not even kings are shielded

By the watch at their palace gates.

Impatient murmurs, or embittered turning

Against her, deem not best;

Save willing the thing God wills, no other learning

Shall bring us to our rest.