Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs Shrilly the skater's iron rings, And voices fill the woodland side. Alas! how changed from the fair scene, But still wild music is abroad, Pale, desert woods, within your crowd; And gathered winds, in hoarse accord, Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud. Chill airs, and wintry winds, my ear A Last Wish.-ANONYMOUS. WHEN breath and sense have left this clay, To some lone, green, and sunny spot; To whispering winds, the grass shall wave. The wild flowers, too, I loved so well, Shall blow, and breathe their sweetness there, And all around my grave shall tell, "She felt that nature's face was fair." And those that come because they loved Shall find their anguish half removed, While that sweet spot shall soothe their wo. The notes of happy birds alone Shall there disturb the silent air; And when the cheerful sun goes down, Roving among the sleeping flowers, The Winged Worshippers.-CHARLES SPRAGUE. GAY, guiltless pair, What seek ye from the fields of heaven? Ye have no sins to be forgiven. Why perch ye here, Where mortals to their Maker bend? Can your pure spirits fear The God ye never could offend? Ye never knew The crimes for which we come to weep: Blessed wanderers of the upper deep. To you 'tis given To wake sweet nature's untaught lays; Then spread each wing, Far, far above, o'er lakes and lands, In yon blue dome not reared with hands. Above the crowd, On upward wings could I but fly, "Twere heaven indeed, Through fields of trackless light to soar, Death of an Infant.-MRS. SIGOURNEY. DEATH found strange beauty on that cherub brow, And dashed it out. There was a tint of rose On cheek and lip; he touched the veins with ice, With ruthless haste, he bound The silken fringes of their curtaining lids Burns.-F. G. HALLECK. THE memory of Burns-a name That calls, when brimmed her festal cup, A nation's glory, and her shame, In silent sadness up. A nation's glory-be the rest Forgot-she's canonized his mind: And it is joy to speak the best We may of human kind. I've stood beside the cottage bed Where the bard-peasant first drew breath, A straw-thatched roof above his head, A straw-wrought couch beneath. And I have stood beside the pile, His monument--that tells to Heaven There have been loftier themes than his, And longer scrolls, and louder lyres, And lays lit up with Poesy's Purer and holier fires. Yet read the names that know not death,- Than that which binds his hair. His is that language of the heart, In which the answering heart would speak, Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start, Or the smile light the cheek; And his, that music, to whose tone In cold or sunny clime. What sweet tears dim the eyes unshed, What wild vows falter on the tongue, When "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," Or "Auld lang Syne" is sung! Pure hopes, that lift the soul above, Come with his Cotter's hymn of praise, And when he breathes his master-lay All passions in our frames of clay Imagination's world of air, And our own world, its gloom and glee, Praise to the bard!-His words are driven, Praise to the man!-A nation stood And still, as on his funeral day, Men stand his cold earth-couch around, With the mute homage that we pay And consecrated ground it is, The last, the hallowed home of one Who lives upon all memories, Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines, The Delphian vales, the Palestines, Sages, with Wisdom's garland wreathed, And lowlier names, whose humble home Are there-o'er wave and mountain come, Pilgrims, whose wandering feet have pressed The Switzer's snow, the Arab's sand, Or trod the piled leaves of the West, |