And paused a moment by a lonely spot,

The unrecorded mound wherein may sleep Some nameless waif, whose unremembered lot Found naught to hope and left no friend to weep.

How many minds unconquered by their fate,

How many brains that throbbed with feverish thought, How many wordless yearnings for the great, Have found beyond this bourn the goal they sought!

What garnered wisdom, what unwritten lore,
What glowing visions, and what noble worth,
Have shone unvalued, then dropped back once more
Like unset jewels into mines of earth!

Here stately monuments of graceful art

Proclaim the virtues of the flattered dead:

How oft an epitaph exalts a heart

Whose deeds no lustre on its lifetime shed!

Yet here, apart, mid calm, sequestered glade,
A pathway winds, by pilgrim homage worn,
Where generous Love and Friendship's tasteful aid
Have shrined the relics whose repose they mourn.

Rough from the quarry hewn, in shapeless grace
The unpolished block of virgin marble stands,
And forms the massive but unmodelled base
Where chiselled urn admiring praise commands.

Expressive symbol of the mind unwrought,

Till Time to Labor's work perfection brings,

And kindred souls, fulfilling Nature's thought,
Undying laurels carve where ivy clings.

"T was minstrel's truest type, that needs no words,
The stringless lyre leaning on thy grave!
Death early loosed thy spirit's "silver chords,"
And stilled the music that thy being gave.

Yet Hope's proud dreams might ask no more of Fame
Than such a tribute for an honored tomb,
Where tears of grief bedew the cherished name,
And glory spreads her bays of fadeless bloom!
Sallie Bridges.

THE BURIAL-PLACE AT LAUREL HILL.

ERE the lamented dead in dust shall lie,

HERE

Life's lingering languors o'er, its labors done, Where waving boughs, betwixt the earth and sky, Admit the farewell radiance of the sun.

Here the long concourse from the murmuring town,
With funeral pace and slow, shall enter in,
To lay the loved in tranquil silence down,
No more to suffer, and no more to sin.

And in this hallowed spot, where Nature showers
Her summer smiles from fair and stainless skies,
Affection's hand may strew her dewy flowers,

Whose fragrant incense from the grave shall rise.

And here the impressive stone, engraved with words Which grief sententious gives to marble pale,

Shall teach the heart; while waters, leaves, and birds Make cheerful music in the passing gale.

Say, wherefore should we weep, and wherefore pour
On scented airs the unavailing sigh

While sun-bright waves are quivering to the shore,
And landscapes blooming-that the loved must die?
There is an emblem in this peaceful scene;
Soon rainbow colors on the woods will fall,
And autumn gusts bereave the hills of green,
As sinks the year to meet its cloudy pall.

Then, cold and pale, in distant vistas round,

Disrobed and tuneless, all the woods will stand, While the chained streams are silent as the ground, As Death had numbed them with his icy hand.

Yet, when the warm, soft winds shall rise in spring,
Like struggling daybeams o'er a blasted heath,

The bird returned shall poise her golden wing,
And liberal Nature break the spell of Death.

So, when the tomb's dull silence finds an end,
The blessed dead to endless youth shall rise,
And hear the archangel's thrilling summons blend
Its tone with anthems from the upper skies.

There shall the good of earth be found at last,
Where dazzling streams and vernal fields expand;
Where Love her crown attains, her trials past,
And, filled with rapture, hails the "better land"!
Willis Gaylord Clark.

HOW

CHALKLEY HALL.

[OW bland and sweet the greeting of this breeze To him who flies

From crowded street and red wall's weary gleam, Till far behind him like a hideous dream

The close dark city lies!

Here, while the market murmurs, while men throng
The marble floor

Of Mammon's altar, from the crush and din
Of the world's madness let me gather in
My better thoughts once more.

O, once again revive, while on my ear
The cry of Gain

And low hoarse hum of Traffic die away,
Ye blessed memories of my early day

Like sere grass wet with rain!

Once more let God's green earth and sunset air
Old feelings waken;

Through weary years of toil and strife and ill,
Oh, let me feel that my good angel still
Hath not his trust forsaken.

And well do time and place befit my mood:
Beneath the arms

Of this embracing wood, a good man made
His home, like Abraham resting in the shade
Of Mamre's lonely palms.

Here, rich with autumn gifts of countless years,

The virgin soil

Turned from the share he guided, and in rain
And summer sunshine throve the fruits and grain
Which blessed his honest toil.

Here, from his voyages on the stormy seas,
Weary and worn,

He came to meet his children and to bless
The Giver of all good in thankfulness
And praise for his return.

And here his neighbors gathered in to greet
Their friend again,

Safe from the wave and the destroying gales,
Which reap untimely green Bermuda's vales,
And vex the Carib main.

*

*

*

Oh, far away beneath New England's sky,

Even when a boy,

Following my plough by Merrimac's green shore,
His simple record I have pondered o'er

With deep and quiet joy.

And hence this scene, in sunset glory warm,

Its woods around,

Its still stream winding on in light and shade,
Its soft green meadows and its upland glade,
To me is holy ground.

*

*

John Greenleaf Whittier.