Half-way up the stairs it stands, Like a monk, who, under his cloak, With sorrowful voice to all who pass,- Never-forever!" By day its voice is low and light; Never-forever! Through days of sorrow and of mirth, Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood, In that mansion used to be His great fires up the chimney roared; There groups of merry children played, And affluence of love and time! Even as a miser counts his gold, Those hours the ancient timepiece told, "Forever-never! Never-forever!" From that chamber, clothed in white, The bride came forth on her wedding night; There, in that silent room below, The dead lay in his shroud of snow; And in the hush that followed the prayer, Was heard the old clock on the stair, "Forever-never! Never-forever!" All are scattered now and fled, Some are married, some are dead; And when I ask, with throbs of pain, "Ah! when shall they all meet again?" As in the days long-since gone by, The ancient timepiece makes reply,"Forever-never! Never-forever!" Never here, forever there, Where all parting, pain, and care, The horologe of Eternity Never-forever!" THOU Comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain, DANT E. TUSCAN, that wanderest through the realms of gloom, Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom; As up the convent-walls, in golden streaks, The ascending sunbeams mark the day's decrease; Charlemagne may be called by pre-eminence the monarch of farmers. According to the German tradition, in seasons of great abundance his spirit crosses the Rhine on a golden bridge at Bingen, and blesses the corn-fields and the vineyards. During his lifetime, he did not disdain, says Montesquieu, "to sell the eggs from the farmyards of his domains, and the superfluous vegetables of his gardens; while he distributed among his people the wealth of the Lombards, and the immense treasures of the Huns.' And, as he asks what there the stranger seeks, Thy voice along the cloister whispers, "Peace!" THE EVENING STAR. Lo! in the painted oriel of the West, And from thy darkened window fades the light. As one who, walking in the twilight gloom, So walking here, in twilight, O my friends! I hear your voices, softened by the distance, And pause, and turn to listen, as each sends His words of friendship, comfort, and assistance. If any thought of mine, or sung or told, Has ever given delight or consolation, Thanks for the sympathies that ye have shown! Kind messages, that pass from land to land; One touch of fire, and all the rest is mystery! The pleasant books, that silently among Our household treasures take familiar places, And are to us as if a living tongue Spake from the printed leaves or pictured faces! Perhaps on earth I never shall behold, With eye of sense, your outward form and semblance; Therefore to me ye never will grow old, But live for ever young in my remembrance. Never grow old, nor change, nor pass away! |