SONNET-TO

Ay, thou art for the grave; thy glances shine
Too brightly to shine long; another Spring
Shall deck her for men's eyes,—but not for thine-
Sealed in a sleep which knows no wakening.
The fields for thee have no medicinal leaf,

And the vexed ore no mineral of power;
And they who love thee wait in anxious grief

Till the slow plague shall bring the fatal hour. Glide softly to thy rest then; Death should come Gently, to one of gentle mould like thee,

As light winds wandering through groves of bloom
Detach the delicate blossom from the tree.
Close thy sweet eyes, calmly, and without pain;
And we will trust in God to see thee yet again.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.

Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the withered leaves lie

dead ;

They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the

jay,

And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy

day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood

In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November
rain,

Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer

glow;

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THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty

stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the

plague on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,

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.

HYMN TO DEATH.

OH! could I hope the wise and pure in heart
Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem
My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,——
I would take up the hymn to Death, and say
To the grim power, The world hath slandered thee
And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow
They place an iron crown, and call thee king
Of terrors, and the spoiler of the world,
Deadly assassin, that strik'st down the fair,

The loved, the good—that breath'st upon the lights
Of virtue set along the vale of life,

I am come,

And they go out in darkness.
Not with reproaches, not with cries and prayers,
Such as have stormed thy stern insensible ear
From the beginning. I am come to speak
Thy praises. True it is, that I have wept
Thy conquests, and may weep them yet again :
And thou from some I love wilt take a life

Dear to me as my own. Yet while the spell
Is on my spirit, and I talk with thee
In sight of all thy trophies, face to face,
Meet is it that my voice should utter forth

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HYMN TO DEATH.

Thy nobler triumphs: I will teach the world
To thank thee.-Who are thine accusers ?--Who?
The living!--they who never felt thy power,

And know thee not. The curses of the wretch

Whose crimes are ripe, his sufferings when thy hand Is on him, and the hour he dreads is come,

Are writ among thy praises.

But the good-

Does he whom thy kind hand dismissed to peace, Upbraid the gentle violence that took off

His fetters, and unbarred his prison cell?

Raise then the Hymn to Death.

Deliverer!

God hath anointed thee to free the oppressed
And crush the oppressor. When the armed chief,
The conqueror of nations, walks the world,
And it is changed beneath his feet, and all
Its kingdoms melt into one mighty realm--
Thou, while his head is loftiest, and his heart
Blasphemes, imagining his own right hand
Almighty, sett'st upon him thy stern grasp,
And the strong links of that tremendous chain
That bound mankind are crumbled; thou dost break
Sceptre and crown, and beat his throne to dust.
Then the earth shouts with gladness, and her tribes
Gather within their ancient bounds again.

Else had the mighty of the olden time,
Nimrod, Sesostris, or the youth who feigned
His birth from Lybian Ammon, smote even now
The nations with a rod of iron, and driven
Their chariot o'er our necks. Thou dost avenge,
In thy good time, the wrongs of those who know