She weeping dropped a tear,

and when it fell

A poet caught the little pearly sphere

And questioned it;

and his enraptured ear

Caught up the things which it began to tell.

He heard the tone of solemn sounding knell

O'er a departed Hope; the cry of Fear;

The wail of Anguish; and soft sighings dear

Which make the lover's lonely bosom swell.

And there he saw ensphered a mother's heart,

Bleeding for her lost child; and open grave,

And Love amid the trophies of his dart,

With every throb of passion that it gave.

All heights of joy, and depths of woe, were here

Encompassed in the ocean of a tear.