How blessed are they, whose transient years
Pass like an evening meteor's flight:
Not dark with guilt, nor dim with tears;
Whose course is short, unclouded, bright.
O cheerless were our lengthened way;
But Heaven's own light dispels the gloom,
Streams downward from eternal day,
And casts a glory round the tomb.
Then stay thy tears: the blessed above
Have hailed a spirit's heavenly birth,
Sung a new song of joy and love;
And why should anguish reign on earth?
ON PASSING THE GRAVE OF MY SISTER.
ON yonder shore, on yonder shore,
Now verdant with the depth of shade,
Beneath the white-armed sycamore,
There is a little infant laid.
Forgive this tear. A brother weeps-
Tis there the faded floweret sleeps.
She sleeps alone, she sleeps alone,
And summer's forests o'er her wave;
And sighing winds at autumn moan
Around the little stranger's grave,
As though they murmured at the fate
Of one so lone and desolate.
In sounds that seem like Sorrow's own,
Their funeral dirges faintly creep;
Then, deep'ning to an organ tone,
In all their solemn cadence sweep,
And pour, unheard, along the wild,
Their desert anthem o'er a child.
She came, and passed. Can I forget,
How we, whose hearts had hailed her birth,
Ere three autumnal suns had set,
Consigned her to her mother Earth?
Joys and their memories pass away;
But griefs are deeper traced than they.
We laid her in her narrow cell,
We heaped the soft mould on her breast,
And parting tears, like rain-drops, fell
Upon her lonely place of rest.
May angels guard it!-may they bless
Her slumbers in the wilderness!
She sleeps alone, she sleeps alone,
For, all unheard, on yonder shore,
The sweeping flood, with torrent moan,
At evening lifts its solemn roar,
As, in one broad, eternal tide,
Its rolling waters onward glide.
There is no marble monument,
There is no stone, with graven lie,
To tell of love and virtue blent
In one almost too good to die.
We needed no such useless trace
To point us to her resting place.
She sleeps alone, she sleeps alone;
But, midst the tears of April showers,
In sounds that seem like Sorrow's own,
Their funeral dirges faintly creep;
Then, deep'ning to an organ tone,
In all their solemn cadence sweep,
And pour, unheard, along the wild,
Their desert anthem o'er a child.
She came, and passed. Can I forget,
How we, whose hearts had hailed her birth
Ere three autumnal suns had set,
Consigned her to her mother Earth?
Joys and their memories pass away;
But griefs are deeper traced than they.
We laid her in her narrow cell,
We heaped the soft mould on her breast,
And parting tears, like rain-drops, fell
Upon her lonely place of rest.
May angels guard it!-may they bless
Her slumbers in the wilderness!
She sleeps alone, she sleeps alone,
For, all unheard, on yonder shore,
The sweeping flood, with torrent moan,
At evening lifts its solemn roar,
As, in one broad, eternal tide,
Its rolling waters onward glide.
There is no marble monument,
There is no stone, with graven lie,
To tell of love and virtue blent
In one almost too good to die.
We needed no such useless trace
To point us to her resting place.
She sleeps alone, she sleeps alone;
But, midst the tears of April showers,
They will not always slumber there;
We see a world more bright and fair,
A home beyond the skies.
And we may feel the bitter dart,
Most keenly rankling in the heart,
By some dark ingrate driven :
In us revenge can never burn;
We pity, pardon; then we turn,
And rest our souls in heaven.
Tis thou, O Lord, who shield'st my head,
And draw'st thy curtains round my bed;
I sleep secure in thee:
And, O, may soon that time arrive,
When we before thy face shall live
Through all eternity.
THERE is a voice in the western breeze,
As it floats o'er spring's young roses,
Or sighs among the blossoming trees,
Where the spirit of love reposes:
It tells of the joys of the pure and young,
Ere they wander life's wildering paths among.
There is a voice in the summer gale,
Which breathes amid regions of bloom,
Or murmurs soft, through the dewy vale,
In moonlight's tender gloom:
It tells of hope unblighted yet
And of hours that the soul can ne'er forget!
There is a voice in the autumn blast,
That wafts the falling leaf,
When the glowing scene is fading fast-
For the hour of bloom is brief:
It tells of life-its sure decay-
And of earthly splendours that pass away!
There is a voice in the wintry storm,
For the blighting spirit is there,
Breathing o'er every vernal charm,
O'er all that was bright and fair;
It tells of death as it moans around,
And the lonely hall returns the sound.
And there's a voice-a small still voice,
That comes when the storm is past-
It bids the sufferer's heart rejoice
In the haven of peace at last :
It tells of joys beyond the grave,
And of Him who died the world to save.
THERE is an hour whose gentle reign,
Repays the day of care and pain,
When the gay sun, retired to rest,
Deserts the grove he lately dress'd,
And leaves the night's chaste goddess free
To sit enthron'd "o'er tower and tree;"
I pity those who have not known
That happy evening hour alone.
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