Charles Tennyson Turner

How like the leper, with his own sad cry Enforcing his own solitude, it tolls! That lonely bell set in the rushing shoals, To warn us from the place of jeopardy!

Hung on the shower that fronts the golden West, The rainbow bursts like magic on mine eyes! In hues of ancient promise there imprest; Frail in its date, eternal in its guise.

Oh! that the memories which survive us here Were half so lovely as these wings of thine! Pure relics of a blameless life, that shine Now thou art gone.

The little bee returns with evening's gloom, To join her comrades in the braided hive, Where, housed beside their mighty honey-comb, They dream their polity shall long survive.