GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK
Philadelphia, March 1850

OLIVIA.

BY LLEWELLYN.

"Oh, star untimely set!" -- Wilson.

I LOOKED on her but once while in

This changing world she stayed,

But from my brain no power can win

The image which was made.

Still from the walls of memory

It hangs, and ever seems

Like one which used to smile on me

In childhood's holy dreams.

Her delicate but stately form,

Her spiritual, large eye,

The words she spoke, survive the storm,

The things that cannot die.

Earth was to her so undefiled,

So cheerful was her duty,

She was to me a mortal child

Clothed with immortal beauty.

And since they told me that she slept

The sleep that knows no waking,

My heart, which still her image kept,

Has silently been breaking.