The Poet's Death Song

I am dying, I am dying,
     In the dawn of my renown, 
And my rapid hours are flying 
     Time's perterbid waters down.

Fame her coronet is wearing, 
     To entwine my forehead now;
But the laurel I am leaving, 
     Leaving for another's brow.

Fortune in the path before me
     Shed her ever radiant light—
But a-cloud is coming o'er me, 
     And my day is turned to night.

I am dying, I am dying,
     While the spring is bright in bloom;
And the mournful wind is sighing, 
     That shall sweep above my tomb.

Greenness is in all the valleys, 
     Beauty on the sylvan plain, 
Where forgotten Music rallies, 
     All her feathered choir again.

Nature, like an infant weeping,
     Wasted, sinks to rest awhile;
Like that infant, from its sleeping.
     Lo, she wakens with a smile!

But, alas! while earth, renewing 
     All her glory, grows more bright,—
Sinks my form to swifter ruin, 
     As the mist in morning's light.

Fast my hours of life are failing, 
     And the bland and balmy breath 
Of the spring is unavailing.
     To dissolve the frosts of death.

I am speeding, I am speeding,
     From my childhood's hills and dells, 
Where alone I lingered, reading
     Nature's living oracles.

All the forest songsters knew me, 
     They were my companions then;
And they.sang sweet carols to me, 
     In the low and shady glen.

Every rock and old gray mountain, 
     Was a viewless spirit's throne;
Every stream and gurgling fountain 
     With a smile returned my own.

Fairies from the bubbling waters, 
     Laughing, to my spirit spoke, 
And the evening's star-eyed daughters
     Soft melodious songs awoke.

Angela seemed on clouds to hover 
     O'er the gates of sunset bright, 
Waving golden banners over 
     The retreating hosts of light.

But they are fading, they are fading, 
     Fancy's flowers, before they bloom;
Blasted in the all-pervading
     Death-damps of the yearning tomb.

Child of Song and child of Passion, 
     I had bowed before their shrine, 
Ere my hand was taught to fashion 
     Numbers to the harp divine.

And to voiceless adoration, 
     Rock and river, tree and bird,
Eartli's unwritten revelation,
     All my youthful spirit stirred.

But nias, that I am dying!
     Nature lends the soul no fire;
Not a harp-string is replying
     Backward to the trembling lyre.

Joya of earth, farewell forever,
     Life and Beauty, Harp and Song:
Flesh and soul, the pangs that sever, 
     Dart my quiv’ring nerves along.

Be my harp hung on the willow, 
     Where the winds their coursers urge;
Wailing o'er my cold, damp pillow
     It may form my funeral dirge.