A CHURCHYARD SCENE.
Gliding across the sad retreat
How beautiful their phantom feet!
What tenderness is in their eyes,
Turned where the poor survivor lies,
'Mid monitory sanctities!
What years of vanish'd joy are fann'd
From one uplifting of that hand
In its white stillness! When the shade
Doth glimmeringly in sunshine fade
From our embrace, how dim appears
This world's life, through a mist of tears! Vain hopes! Wild sorrows! Needless fears! Such is the scene around me now:
A little churchyard on the brow
Of a green pastoral hill;
Its sylvan village sleeps below,
And faintly, here, is heard the flow
Of Woodburn's summer rill,
A place where all things mournful meet,
And yet, the sweetest of the sweet
The stillest of the still!
With what a pensive beauty fall,
Across the mossy mouldering wall,
That rose-tree's clustered arches! See
The robin red-breast, warily,
Bright through the blossoms leaves his,nest;
Sweet ingrate! through the winter blest
At the fire-sides of men-but shy
Through all the sunny, summer hours—
He hides himself among the flowers
In his own wild festivity.
What lulling sound, and shadow cool,
Hang half the darkened churchyard o'er,
From thy green depth, so beautiful,
Thou gorgeous sycamore!
Oft have the lowly wine and bread,
Been blessed beneath thy murm'ring tent,
Where many a bright and hoary head,
Bowed at the awful sacrament.
Now all beneath the turf are laid,
On which they sat, and sang, and prayed.
Above that consecrated tree
Ascends the tapering spire, that seems
To lift the soul up silently
To heaven with all its dreams!-
While in the belfry, deep and low,
From his heav'd bosom's purple gleams
The dove's continuous murmurs flow
A dirge-like song, half bliss, half woe,-
The voice so lonely seems!
PARTED friends may meet again
When the storms of life are past;
And the spirit freed from pain,
Basks in friendship that will last
TO THE RAINBOW.
Worldly cares may sever wide-
Distant far their path may be―
But, the bond by Death untied,
They shall once again be free.
Death-the end of care and pain-
Death, the wretch's happiest meed,
Death can break the strongest chain,
Death is liberty indeed.
Parted friends again may meet,
From the toils of nature free;
Crown'd with mercy, O how sweet
Will eternal friendship be!
Co the Rainbow.
TRIUMPHAL arch, that fill'st the sky
When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud Philosophy
To teach me what thou art.
Still seem as to my childhood's sight
A mid-way station given
For happy spirits to alight
Betwixt the earth and heaven.
Can all that optics teach, unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dreamed of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?
When Science from Creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws.
And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High
Have told, why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.
When o'er the green undeluged earth
Heaven's cov'nant thou did'st shine,
How came the world's grey fathers forth
To watch thy sacred sign!
And when its yellow lustre smiled
O'er mountains yet untrod,
Each mother held aloft her child
To bless the bow of God.
Methinks thy jubilee to keep,
The first-made anthem rang,
On earth delivered from the deep,
And the first poet sang.
TO THE RAINBOW.
Nor ever shall the Muse's eye
Unraptur'd greet thy beam:
Theme of primeval prophecy,
Be still the poet's theme!
The earth to thee its incense yields,
The lark thy welcome sings,
When glittering in the freshen'd fields
The snowy mushroom springs.
How glorious is thy girdle cast,
O'er mountain, tower, and town:
Or mirror'd in the ocean vast,
A thousand fathoms down.
As fresh in yon horizon dark,
As young thy beauties seem,
As when the eagle from the ark
First sported in thy beam.
For, faithful to its sacred page,
Heaven still rebuilds thy span,
Nor let the type grow pale with age,
That first spoke peace to man.
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