In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,
By guardian angels led,
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives, whom we call dead.
Day after day we think what she is doing
In those bright realms of air ;
Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
Behold her grown more fair.
Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken
The bond which nature gives,
Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,
May reach her where she lives.
Not as a child shall we again behold her;
For when with raptures wild
In our embraces we again enfold her,
She will not be a child;
But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,
Clothed with celestial grace;
And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
Shall we behold her face.
And though at times impetuous with emotion
And anguish long suppressed,
The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean, That cannot be at rest, —
We will be patient, and assuage the feeling
We may not wholly stay;
By silence sanctifying, not concealing,
The grief that must have way.
ENTLY speak, and lightly tread,
Now thine earthly course is run,
Now thy weary day is done,
Genoveva, sainted one!
Happy flight thy sprite has taken,
From its plumes earth's last dust shaken :
On the earth is passionate weeping,
Round thy bier lone vigils keeping,—
In the heaven triumphant songs,
Welcome of angelic throngs,
As thou enterest on that day
Which no tears, nor fears allay,
No regrets, nor pangs affray,
Hemmed not in by yesterday,
By to-morrow hemmed not in,
Weep not for her, she doth win
What we long for; now is she
That which all desire to be.
Bear her forth with solemn cheer,
Bear her forth on open bier,
That the wonder which hath been
May of every eye be seen.
Wonderful! that pale worn brow
Death hath scarcely sealed, and now
All the beauty that she wore
In the youthful years before,
All the freshness, and the grace,
And the bloom upon her face,
Ere that seven-yeared distress
In the painful wilderness,
Ere that wasting sickness came,
Undermining quite her frame,
All come back,- the light, the hue,
Tinge her cheek and lip anew:
Far from her, O far away,
All that is so quick to say,
"Man returneth to his clay";
All that to our creeping fear
Whispers of corruption near.
Seems it as she would illume,
With her radiance and her bloom,
The dark spaces of the tomb.
ALM on the bosom of thy God,
Fair spirit, rest thee now !
E'en while with ours thy footsteps trod
His seal was on thy brow.
Dust, to its narrow house beneath!
Soul, to its place on high!
They, that have seen thy look in death,
No more may fear to die.
O rest, forever rest, O Princely Pair!
In your high church, 'mid the still mountain air,
Where horn, and hound, and vassals, never come,
Only the blessed Saints are smiling dumb
From the rich painted windows of the nave
On aisle, and transept, and your marble grave;
Where thou, young Prince, shalt never more arise
From the fringed mattress where thy Duchess lies,
On Autumn mornings, when the bugle sounds,
And ride across the drawbridge with thy hounds
To hunt the boar in the crisp woods till eve.
And thou, O Princess, shalt no more receive,
Thou and thy ladies in the hall of state,
The jaded hunters with their bloody freight,
Coming benighted to the castle gate.
So sleep, forever sleep, O Marble Pair!
And if ye wake, let it be then, when fair,
On the carved western front, a flood of light
Streams from the setting sun, and colors bright
Prophets, transfigured saints, and martyrs brave,
In the vast western window of the nave ;
And on the pavement round the tomb there glints
A chequer-work of glowing sapphire tints,
And amethyst, and ruby; - then unclose
Your eyelids on the stone where ye repose,
And from your broidered pillows lift your heads,
And rise upon your cold white marble beds,
And looking down on the warm rosy tints
That chequer, at your feet, the illumined flints,
Say "What is this? we are in bliss,-forgiven,—
Behold the pavement of the courts of Heaven!”.
Or let it be on Autumn nights, when rain
Doth rustlingly above your heads complain
On the smooth leaden roof; and on the walls,
Shedding her pensive light at intervals,
The moon through the clerestory windows shines;
And the wind washes in the mountain pines.
Then gazing up through the dim pillars high,
The foliaged marble forest where ye lie,
"Hush!" ye will say "it is eternity!
This is the glimmering verge of Heaven, and these
The columns of the Heavenly Palaces."
And in the sweeping of the wind, your ear
The passage of the Angels' wings will hear,
And on the lichen-crusted leads above
The rustle of the eternal rain of Love.
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