The tasks are done and the tears are shed

She stood amid the morning dew, And sang her earliest measure sweet, Sang as the lark sings,speeding fair, to touch and taste the purer air

These are weighty secrets, and we must whisper them.

I look'd far back into the past, and lo! in bright array, I saw, as in a dream, the forms of ages pass'd away. It was a stately convent, with its old and lofty walls, And gardens with their broad green walks, where soft the footstep falls.

On the morning of January 11th, 1860, I passed, for the eighth time, through the Golden Gate... As the shores of California faded in the distance, and the summits of the Coast Range sank under the blue horizon, I bade farewell — yes, I do …

Tho’ sickness yet a while forbears, Yet time destroys what sickness spares; Now Helen lives alone in fame And Cleopatra's but a name; Time must indent that heav'nly brow, And thou must be what they are now.

Your most beautiful bride who with garlands is crown'd And kills with each glance as she treads on the ground... Though now she be pleasant and sweet to the sense, Will be damnable mouldy a hundred years hence.