"God's mercy," to myself I said, "To both our souls is given— To me, sojourning on earth's shade, To her-a Saint in heaven!"
When by God's inward light, a happy child,
I walked in joy, as in the open air,
It seemed to my young thought the Sabbath smiled
With glory and with love. So still, so fair,
The Heavens looked ever on that hallowed morn,
That, without aid of memory, something there
Had surely told me of its glad return.
How did my little heart at evening burn,
When, fondly seated on my father's knee,
Taught by the lip of love, I breathed the prayer,
Warm from the fount of infant piety!
Much is my spirit changed; for years have brought Intenser feeling and expanded thought;
-Yet, must I envy every child I see!
The Burial of the Righteous. 109
THE BURIAL OF THE RIGHTEOUS.
BUT wood and wild, the mountain and the dale, The house of prayer itself,—no place inspires Emotions more accordant with the day,
Than does the field of graves, the land of rest :-
Oft at the close of evening prayer, the toll,
The solemn funeral-toll, pausing, proclaims
The service of the tomb: the homeward crowds
Divide on either hand; the pomp draws near;
The choir to meet the dead go forth, and sing,
"I am the resurrection and the life."
Ah me! these youthful bearers robed in white,
They tell
mournful tale; some blooming friend
Is gone, dead in her prime of years :—'
'Twas she,
The poor man's friend, who, when she could not give,
With angel tongue pleaded to those who could;
With angel tongue and mild beseeching eye,
That ne'er besought in vain, save when she pray'd
For longer life, with heart resign'd to die,—
Rejoiced to die; for happy visions bless'd
Her voyage's last days, and hovering round,
Alighted on her soul, giving presage
That heaven was nigh :
Of rapture from her lips!
Her heavenward eyes suffused!
But all her loveliness is not yet flown :
She smiled in death, and still her cold pale face
Retains that smile; as when a waveless lake,
In which the wintry stars all bright appear,
Is sheeted by a nightly frost with ice,
Still it reflects the face of heaven unchanged,
Unruffled by the breeze or sweeping blast.
Again that knell! The slow procession stops:
The pall withdrawn, Death's altar, thick emboss'd
With melancholy ornaments
The record of her blossoming age),-appears
Unveil'd, and on it dust to dust is thrown,
The final rite. Oh! hark that sullen sound!
Upon the lower'd bier the shovell'd clay
Falls fast, and fills the void.
When homeward bands their several ways disperse,
I love to linger in the narrow field
Of rest, to wander round from tomb to tomb,
And think of some who silent sleep below.
Sad sighs the wind, that from those ancient elms
Shakes showers of leaves upon the wither'd grass:
The seer and yellow wreaths, with eddying sweep,
Fill up the furrows 'tween the hillock'd graves.
But list that moan! 't is the poor blind man's dog,
His guide for many a day, now come to mourn
The master and the friend-conjunction rare!
A man indeed he was of gentle soul,
Though bred to brave the deep: the lightning's flash
Had dimm'd, not closed, his mild, but sightless eyes.
He was a welcome guest through all his range!
(It was not wide): no dog would bay at him;
Children would run to meet him on his way,
And lead him to a sunny seat, and climb
His knee, and wonder at his oft-told tales.
Then would he teach the elfins how to plait
The rushy cap and crown, or sedgy ship;
And I have seen him lay his tremulous hand
Upon their heads, while silent moved his lips.
Peace to thy spirit! that now looks on me
Perhaps with greater pity than I felt
To see thee wandering darkling on thy way.
But let me quit this melancholy spot,
And roam where nature gives a parting smile.
As yet the blue-bells linger on the sod
That copes the sheepfold ring; and in the woods
A second blow of many flowers appears ;
Flowers faintly tinged, and breathing no perfume.
But fruits, not blossoms, form the woodland wreath
That circles Autumn's brow: the ruddy haws
Now clothe the half-leaved thorn; the bramble bendɛ Beneath its jetty load; the hazel hangs
With auburn branches, dipping in the stream
That sweeps along, and threatens to o'erflow
The leaf-strewn banks: Oft, statue-like, I gaze,
In vacancy of thought, upon
that stream,
And chase, with dreaming eye, the eddying foam;
Or rowan's cluster'd branch, or harvest sheaf,
Borne rapidly adown the dizzying flood.
Few are thy days, and full of woe,
Oman of woman born!
Thy doom is written, “ Dust thou art,
And shalt to dust return."
Determined are the days that fly
Successive o'er thy head;
The number'd hour is on the wing,
That lays thee with the dead.
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