Explore "Over the Eyes of Gladness" by James Whitcomb Riley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"The voice of One hath spoken, / And the bended reed is bruised -- / The golden bowl is broken, / And the silver cord is loosed."
Over the eyes of gladness / The lids of sorrow fall, / And the light of mirth is darkened / Under the funeral pall.
The hearts that throbbed with rapture / In dreams of the future years, / Are wakened from their slumbers, / And their visions drowned in tears.
Two buds on the bough in the morning -- / Twin buds in the smiling sun, / But the frost of death has fallen / And blighted the bloom of one.
One leaf of life still folded / Has fallen from the stem, / Leaving the symbol teaching / There still are two of them, --
For though -- through Time's gradations, / The LIVING bud may burst, -- / The WITHERED one is gathered, / And blooms in Heaven first.