‘Tis long, dear Annie, since we met,
Yet deem not that my heart,
For all that absence, can forget
A kinsman’s pious part.
How oft on thee, a sufferer mild,
My kindly thoughts I turn,
He knows, upon whose altar piled
The prayers of suppliants burn.
I love thy name, admiring all
Thy sacred heaven-sent pain;
I love it, for it seems to call
The Lost to earth again.
Can I forget, she to thy need
Her ministry supplied,
Who now, from mortal duty freed,
Serves at the Virgin’s side?
What would’st thou more? Upon thy head
A two-fold grace is pour’d;—
Both in thyself, and for the dead,
A witness of thy Lord!
Oxford. March, 1831.