The lulling winds may still the sea,
All beautiful in its repose;
And with a soft tranquility
The rippling water ebbs and flows.

But when the tempests wildly blow,
Its bosom heaves with many a wreck
Which, till that moment, slept below,
Nor dimmed its surface with a speck.

So I can talk, and laugh, and seem
All that the happiest souls could be;
Lulled for a moment, by some dream,
Soft as the sunset on the sea.

But when a word, a tone, reminds
My bosom of its perished love,
Oh! fearful are the stormy winds
Which dash the heart's wild wrecks above!

One after one they rise again,
And o'er dark memory's ocean steal,
Floating along, through years of pain —
Such as the heart-struck only feel!