A shout at thy return. The glory that comes down from thee, The sun, the gorgeous sun, is thine, The pomp that brings and shuts the day, Thence look the thoughtful stars, and there The sunny Italy may boast The beauteous tints that flush her skies, May thy blue pillars rise. I only know how fair they stand, And they are fair—a charm is theirs, That earth, the proud green earth, has not— With all the forms, and hues, and airs, That haunt her sweetest spot. We gaze upon thy calm pure sphere, Oh, when, am the throng of men, Away from this cold earth, For seats of innocence and rest. THE JOURNEY OF LIFE. BENEATH the waning moon I walk at night, And pitfalls lurk in shade along the ground, The trampled earth returns a sound of fear→→ And I, with faltering footsteps, journey on, Watching the stars that roll the hours away, SONNET-TO Ay, thou art for the grave; thy glances shine And the vexed ore no mineral of power; Till the slow plague shall bring the fatal hour. Glide softly to thy rest then; Death should come Gently, to one of gentle mould like thee, As light winds wandering through groves of bloom Detach the delicate blossom from the tree. Close thy sweet eyes, calmly, and without pain; And we will trust in God to see thee yet again. THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the withered leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain, Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones again. The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, glow; 258 THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen. And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more. And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, The fair, meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side: In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf, And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief: Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours, So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers. La |