"T is good to be unclothed, and sleep in peace. Friend!-Friend!-I would not lose thee! Thou hast been The sharer in my sympathies,—the soul That prompted me to good,-the hand that shed Dew on my budding virtues. In the scenes Where we have dwelt or wandered-I am now But a divided being. None are left To love as thou hast loved. -But yet, to share A few more welcomes from thy soft, blue eye, A few more pressures of thy snowy hand And ruby lip, I would not bind thee here To all that power and plenitude of ill Which we inherit.-Hence, thou selfish grief!Thy root is in the earth, and all thy fruits Bitter and baneful. Holy joy should spring When our co-heirs of immortality Assume their glorious portion. Go, beloved! First, for thou wert most worthy.-I will strive As best such frail one may,-to follow thee. ANONYMOUS. THE FAREWELL TO THE DEAD. Whose all of life, a rosy ray, Blush'd into dawn, and pass'd away. Yes! thou art fled, ere guilt had power The sunbeam's smile, the zephyr's breath, Thou wert so like a form of light, And thou, that brighter home to bless, Oh! hadst thou still on earth remain'd, Now not a sullying breath can rise, We rear no marble o'er thy tomb, Such dwelling to adorn. Thy grave shall be a blessed shrine, And oh! sometimes in visions blest, And bear from thine own world of rest, What form more lovely could be given TO A FRIEND ON THE LOSS OF HIS CHILD. Not every bud that grows Shall bloom into a flower; Shall have its prospering hour. In every joy there lurks Yet, like the bending bough From some dead weight released, There is a pulse in man That will not throb to grief; That pulse will bring relief; Since human hopes are vain, Then, if apart from all, Warm on thine infant's bier, Or should reviving peace And thank indulgent Heaven, ANONYMOUS. THE SEPULCHRE. "But how to think of what the living know not, And the dead cannot, or else may not tell! What art thou? oh! thou great mysterious power." Hughes. THERE Manhood lies! Lift up the pall. In its green pride, the mighty fall, Whom life hath flatter'd with its worth! Its promises, like smiling waves, Where all is hidden treachery. What statued beauty slumbers there! But mark those flowers, pale as the brow Which they have wreath'd; if Death could spare A victim, he had pitied now. To-day she hoped to be a bride- Look on that little cherub's face, Whose budding smile is fix'd by death: Behold that picture of decay, Where nature, wearied, sank to rest! But there how mournfully serene, That childless widow'd mother's look! Above her earthly woes divine. Thus death deals with mortality, Like flowers, some gather'd in their prime, Others, when scarcely said to be, Just number'd with the things of time: |