THE CYPRESS WREATH. EVENING AND DEATH. BY JEAN PAUL. THE day is dying amid blossom-clouds, and with its own swan-song. The alleys and gardens speak in low tones, like men, when deeply moved; and around the leaves fly the gentle winds, and around the blossoms the bees, with a tender whisper. Only the larks, like man, rise warbling into the sky, and then, like him, drop down again into the furrow; while the great soul and the sea lift themselves unseen and unheard to heaven, and rushing, sublime and fruit-giving, water-falls and thunder-showers dash down into the valleys. In a country-house, an unspeakably sweet tone rises from a woman's breast, like a trembling lark. It sounds as if the Spring were flying down from heaven with a song, and, singing on in one continuous tone of rapture, hung poised with open wings above the earth, until the flowers should have sprung for its evening couch. Harshly upon this voice of song breaks the tolling bell, from a neighboring tower; it is the passing-bell, which is always rung when a man is at the point of death, so that the sympathizing soul may pray for the dying, around whom the Last Angel has drawn the shades of night, therein to sever his heartstrings, as they bandage one's eyes in the amputation of a limb. If it depended upon me- -thou departing Unknown! I would stop the death-bell and make it mute, so that now in the darkened battle-field of death no echo of the receding earth should enter; which to thee so dismally announces the moment when thou art lost to us, as to ascending æronauts, by a discharge of cannon, is announced the moment in which they vanish from the eyes of the spectators. BLESSED is the man whom thou chastenest, Lord, and teachest him in thy law; that thou mayest give him patience in time of adversity. JEREMIAH. |