Thus one by one our loved ones go
1
Thus one by one our loved ones go,From year to year, from snow to snow;The buds of springtime hardly bloomEre winter plucks them for the tomb.
2
The sweetest songsters soonest fly,The fondest hopes the soonest die,And harps but once to gladness strungAre on the weeping-willows hung.
3
How much of grief, how little joy,How little gold, how much alloy,How many doubts, how many fearsYe bring us, O ye passing years!
4
Though sorrow dims our vision here,Faith points beyond this mortal sphere,Where tears of anguish never flow,Where pain and death none ever know.