From our evening fireside now
Merry laugh and cheerful tone
Smiling eye and cloudless brow
Mirth and music all are flown

Yet the grass before the door
Grows as green in April rain
And as blithely as of yore
Larks have poured their day-long strain

Is it fear or is it sorrow
Checks the stagnant stream of joy?
Do we tremble that tomorrow
May some future peace destroy?

 ... 

One is absent, and for one
Cheerless chill is our hearthstone
One is absent and for him
Cheeks are pale and eyes are dim

The joy of life has flown
He is gone and we are lone
So it is by morn and eve
So it is in field and hall

For the absent one we grieve
One being absent saddens all