How like a star you rose upon my life,
Shedding fair radiance o’er my darkened hour!
At your uprise swift fled the turbid strife
Of grief and fear,—so mighty was your power!
And I must weed that you now disappear,
Casting eclipse upon my cheerless night—
My heaven deserting for another sphere,
Shedding elsewhere your aye-regretted light.
An Hesperus no more to gild my eve,
You glad the morning of another heart;
And my fond soul must mutely learn to grieve,
While thus from every joy it swells apart.
Yet I may worship still those gentle beams,
Though not on me they shed their silver rain;
And thought of you may linger in my dreams,
And Memory pour balm upon my pain.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on December 27, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
