Exit Holiday

Farewell to the feast-day! the pray'r book is stained     With tears; of the booth scarce a trace has remained;     The lime branch is withered, the osiers are dying,     And pale as a corpse the fair palm-frond is lying;     The boughs of grey willow are trodden and broken--     Friend, these are your hopes and your longings unspoken!     Lo, there lie your dreamings all dimm'd and rejected,     And there lie the joys were so surely expected!     And there is the happiness blighted and perished,     And all that aforetime your soul knew and cherished,     The loved and the longed for, the striven for vainly--     Your whole life before you lies pictured how plainly!     The branches are sapless, the leaves will decay,     An end is upon us, and whence, who shall say?     The broom of the beadle outside now has hustled     The lime and the palm that so pleasantly rustled.     There blew a cold gust, from our sight all is banished--     The shaft from a cross-bow less swiftly had vanished!