As angels sport amid the stars,
  And crown their brows with light,
She played amid the flowers of spring,
  A creature of delight.
  
But when her heart was leaping most
  To greet the summer bloom.
The spectre of the paling cheek
  Led to the darkened room.  
  
But there, as when the smiles of Christ
  Broke through the veil of death,
The flowers were seen in morning bloom,
  And balmy was the breath.
  
She gazed upon them long and still,
  As though she read the truth,
That like them she must fade and die
  Before the noon of youth.  

Yet did they give her holy thoughts,
  And she would bid us smile,
As though the flower-wreathed chain of hope
  She sported with the while.

Still bloom, sweet flowers, for her dear sake;
  I love ye all the more
That she has winged her mystic flight
  To Heaven's eternal shore.

I love to greet ye in my walks;
  Your beauty is her own;
The birds above ye, by the brooks,
  Sing with her merry tone.

And while I breathe the fragrant air,
  And see the stream run on,
I think upon a holy soul,
  A glory early gone,

Still bloom sweet flowers! I love to gaze
  On what she loved so well;
Beyond the charm of stars or skies,
  Ye have o'er me a spell.

And I would feel that holy spell,
  When on the couch I lay,
From whence to greet thee, Immortelle,
  My spirit flees away.