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.

EPITAPH.

HERE in a little cave,

The prettiest nook of this most grassy vale,
All amid lilies pale,

That turn

Their heads into my little vault and mourn,-
Stranger, I've made my grave.

I am not all forgot,

A small hoarse stream murmurs close by my pillow, And o'er me a green willow

Doth weep,

Still questioning the air, "Why doth she sleep,

The girl, in this cold spot?"

Even the very winds

Come to my cave and sigh: they often bring
Rose leaves upon their wing,

To strew

Over my earth, and leaves of violet blue;
In sooth, leaves of all kinds.

Fresh is my mossy bed:

The frequent pity of the rock falls here,
A sweet, cold, silent tear :-

I've heard,

Sometimes, a wild and melancholy bird

Warble at my grave head.

Read this small tablet o'er

That holds mine epitaph upon its cheek of pearl :"Here lies a simple girl,

Who died

Like a pale flower nipt in its sweet spring tide
Ere it had bloom'd:"-no more.

DIRGE FOR RACHEL.

AND Rachel lies in Ephrath's land,
Beneath her lonely oak of weeping,
With mouldering heart and withering hand,
The sleep of death for ever sleeping.

The Spring comes smiling down the vale,
The lilies and the roses bringing,

But Rachel never more shall hail

The flowers that in the world are springing.

The Summer gives his radiant day,
And Jewish dames the dance are treading,
But Rachel, on her couch of clay,
Sleeps all unheeded and unheeding.

The Autumn's ripening sunbeam shines,
And reapers to the field is calling,
But Rachel's voice no longer joins
The choral song, at twilight's falling.

The Winter sends his drenching shower,
And sweeps his howling blast around her,
But earthly storms possess no power

To break the slumber that hath bound her.

HYMN.

WHEN Israel, of the Lord beloved,
Out from the land of bondage came,
Her father's God before her moved,

An awful guide in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonish'd lands
The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night, Arabia's crimson'd sands
Return'd the fiery column's glow.

There rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answer'd keen,
And Zion's daughters pour'd their lays,
With priest's and warrior's voice between.

No portents now our foes amaze,
Forsaken Israel wanders lone,

Our fathers would not know THY ways,
And thou hast left them to their own.

But, present still, though now unseen!
When brightly shines the prosperous day,
Be thoughts of THEE a cloudy screen
To temper the deceitful ray.

And oh, when stoops on Judah's path
In shade and storm the frequent night,
Be THOU, long-suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light!

Our harps we left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn;
No censer round our altar beams,

And mute are timbrel, trump, and horn.
But THOU hast said, "the blood of goat,
The flesh of rams, I will not prize;
A contrite heart, an humble thought,
Are mine accepted sacrifice."

FUNERAL HYMN.

YE midnight shades, o'er nature spread!
Dumb silence of the dreary hour!
In honor of the approaching dead,
Around your awful terrors pour.
Yes, pour around

On this pale ground,

Through all this deep surrounding gloom, The sober thought,

The tear untaught,

Those meetest mourners at a tomb.

Lo! as the surpliced train drew near
To this last mansion of mankind,
The slow sad bell, the sable bier,
In holy musing wrapt the mind!
And while their beam,

With trembling stream,

Attending tapers faintly dart;
Each mouldering bone,

Each sculptured stone,
Strikes mute instruction to the heart!

Now let the sacred organ blow,

With solemn pause, and sounding slow; Now let the voice due measure keep, In strains that sigh, and words that weep; Till all the vocal current blended roll, Not to depress, but lift, the soaring soul:

To lift it in the Maker's praise,

Who first inform'd our frame with breath,

And, after some few stormy days,

Now, gracious, gives us o'er to death.

No King of Fears

In him appears

Who shuts the scene of human woes;