Orphans, from whose young lids the light of joy The pilgrim bands who passed the sea to keep Their Sabbaths in the eye of God alone, In his wide temple of the wilderness, Brought not these simple customs of the heart With them. It might be, while they laid their dead By the vast solemn skirts of the old groves, And the fresh virgin soil poured forth strange flowers About their graves; and the familiar shades Passed out of use. known, Now they are scarcely And rarely in our borders may you meet Are seen instead, where the coarse grass, between, Shoots up its dull green spikes, and in the wind Hisses, and the neglected bramble nigh, Offers its berries to the schoolboy's hand, In vain-they grow too near the dead. Yet here, The brier rose, and upon the broken turf That clothes the fresher grave, the strawberry plant Sprinkles its swell with blossoms, and lays forth Her ruddy, pouting fruit. * "BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN." Он, deem not they are blest alone. The light of smiles shall fill again And weary hours of woe and pain Are promises of happier years. There is a day of sunny rest For every dark and troubled night; And grief may bide an evening guest, But joy shall come with early light. And thou, who, o'er thy friend's low bier, Hope that a brighter, happier sphere Nor let the good man's trust depart, For God hath marked each sorrowing day And numbered every secret tear, And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay For all his children suffer here. "NO MAN KNOWETH HIS SEPUL CHRE." WHEN he, who, from the scourge of wrong, Saw the fair region, promised long, God made his grave, to men unknown, And laid the aged seer alone To slumber while the world grows old. |