THANATOPSIS. To him who in the love of Nature holds The powerful of the earth-the wise, the good, Communion with her visible forms, she Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, speaks A various language; for his gayer hours Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart: Go forth, under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings, while from all around Earth and her waters, and the depths of air,— All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills Rock-ribb'd and ancient as the sun; the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,— Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Are shining on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom.-Take the wings Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness, Comes a still voice-Yet a few days, and Or lose thyself in the continuous woods thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound In all his course; nor yet in the cold Save his own dashings—yet the dead are Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, Turns with his share, and treads upon. there: care Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce His favorite phantom; yet all these shall Plod on, and each one as before will chase thy mould. Yet not to thine eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone,-nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come, And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men, With patriarchs of the infant world-with The youth in life's green spring, and he WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS WHEN coldness wraps this suffering clay, But leaves its darken'd dust behind. Then, unembodied, doth it trace By steps each planet's heavenly way? Or fill at once the realms of space, A thing of eyes, that all survey? Eternal, boundless, undecay'd, A thought unseen, but seeing all, Shall it survey, shall it recall : Before creation peopled earth, Its eye shall roll through chaos back; And where the farthest heaven had birth, The spirit trace its rising track. And where the future mars or makes, Its glance dilate o'er all to be, THE DEATH-BED. WE watch'd her breathing through the night, Her breathing soft and low, Kept heaving to and fro. So silently we seem'd to speak, So slowly moved about, As we had lent her half our powers Our very hopes belied our fears, Our fears our hopes belied- For when the morn came dim and sad CORONACH. THOMAS HOOD. HE is gone on the mountain, The font, reappearing, From the raindrops shall borrow, But to us comes no cheering, To Duncan no morrow! The hand of the reaper Takes the ears that are hoary, Waft the leaves that are serest; Fleet foot on the correi, Sage counsel in cumber, Red hand in the foray, How sound is thy slumber! Like the dew on the mountain, Like the foam on the river, Like the bubble on the fountain, Thou art gone, and for ever! SIR WALTER SCOTT. A few can touch the magic string, And noisy Fame is proud to win them : Alas for those that never sing, But die with all their music in them! Nay, grieve not for the dead alone Whose song has told their hearts' sad story, Weep for the voiceless, who have known The cross without the crown of glory! Not where Leucadian breezes sweep O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, But where the glistening night-dews weep On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. O hearts that break and give no sign If singing breath or echoing chord MAN'S MORTALITY. LIKE as the damask rose you see, Or like the blossom on the tree, Or like the dainty flower in May, Or like the morning of the day, Or like the sun, or like the shade, Or like the gourd which Jonas had,-E'en such is man;-whose thread is spun, Drawn out, and cut, and so is done.The rose withers, the blossom blasteth, The flower fades, the morning hasteth, The sun sets, the shadow flies, The gourd consumes,-and man he dies! Like to the grass that's newly sprung, The grass withers, the tale is ended, SIMON WASTELL. OH WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap, The herdsman who climb'd with his goats to the steep, The beggar who wander'd in search of his bread, Have faded away like the grass that we tread. Oн, why should the spirit of mortal be The saint who enjoy'd the communion of proud? heaven, Like a fast-flitting meteor, a fast-flying The sinner who dared to remain unforcloud, given, A flash of the lightning, a break of the The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just, wave, He passeth from life to his rest in the Have quietly mingled their bones in the grave. dust. The leaves of the oak and the willow shall So the multitude goes, like the flower and fade, Be scatter'd around and together be laid; And the young and the old, and the low and the high, the weed, That wither away to let others succeed; Shall moulder to dust and together shall To repeat every tale that hath often been lie. told. The child that a mother attended and For we are the same things our fathers loved, have been; The mother that infant's affection who We see the same sights that our fathers proved, have seen,The husband that mother and infant who We drink the same stream, and we feel the bless'd,same sun, Each, all, are away to their dwellings of And run the same course that our fathers have run. rest. The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, The thoughts we are thinking our fathers in whose eye, would think; Shone beauty and pleasure,-her triumphs From the death we are shrinking from, are by ; they too would shrink; And the memory of those who have loved To the life we are clinging to, they too her and praised, would cling; Are alike from the minds of the living But it speeds from the earth like a bird on erased. the wing. The hand of the king that the sceptre hath They loved, but their story we cannot unborne, fold; The brow of the priest that the mitre hath They scorn'd, but the heart of the haughty is cold; worn, The eye of the sage, and the heart of the They grieved, but no wail from their slumbrave, bers will come; Are hidden and lost in the depths of the They joy'd, but the voice of their gladness is dumb. grave. They died,―ay! they died; and we things | As I lay in my dream; yet was it a chime That told of the flow of the stream of that are now, Still follow each other, like surge upon Oh how bright were the wheels, that told surge. Of the lapse of time, as they moved round slow; 'Tis the twink of an eye, 'tis the draught And the hands, as they swept o'er the dial of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud, Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud? WILLIAM KNOX. PASSING AWAY. WAS it the chime of a tiny bell That came so sweet to my dreaming ear, Like the silvery tones of a fairy's shell That he winds, on the beach, so mellow and clear, When the winds and the waves lie to gether asleep, of gold, Seem'd to point to the girl below. And lo! she had changed: in a few short hours Her bouquet had become a garland of flowers, That she held in her outstretch'd hands, and flung This way and that, as she, dancing, swung In the fulness of grace and of womanly pride, That told me she soon was to be a bride; Yet then, when expecting her happiest day, In the same sweet voice I heard her say, "Passing away! passing away!" And the Moon and the Fairy are watching While I gazed at that fair one's cheek, a the deep, She dispensing her silvery light, And he his notes as silvery quite, While the boatman listens and ships his oar, To catch the music that comes from the shore? Hark! the notes on my ear that play Are set to words; as they float, they say, "Passing away! passing away!" But no; it was not a fairy's shell, shade Of thought or care stole softly over, Like that by a cloud in a summer's day made, Looking down on a field of blossoming clover. The rose yet lay on her cheek, but its flush Had something lost of its brilliant blush; And the light in her eye, and the light on the wheels, That march'd so calmly round above her, Blown on the beach, so mellow and Was a little dimm'd,-as when Evening clear; Nor was it the tongue of a silver bell, Striking the hour, that fill'd my ear steals Upon Noon's hot face. Yet one couldn't but love her, |