MY OWN FUNERAL

FROM DE BÉRANGER

THIS morning, as in bed I lay,
Half waking and half sleeping,
A score of Loves, immensely gay,
Were round my chamber creeping;
I could not move my hand or head

To ask them what the stir meant;
And "Ah," they cried, "our friend is dead;
Prepare for his interment!"

All whose hearts with mine were blended,
Weep for me! my days are ended!

One drinks my brightest Burgundy,
Without a blush, before me;

One brings a little rosary,

And breathes a blessing o'er me; One finds my pretty chambermaid, And courts her in dumb crambo; Another sees the mutes arrayed With fife by way of flambeau:

In your feasting and your fêting,
Weep for me! my hearse is waiting.

Was ever such a strange array?

The mourners all are singing;
From all the churches on our way
A merry peal is ringing;

The pall that clothes my cold remains,
Instead of boars and dragons,

Is blazoned o'er with darts and chains,
With lutes, and flowers, and flagons:
Passers-by their heads are shaking!-
Weep for me! my grave is making.

And now they let my

coffin fall;

And one of them rehearses,

For want of holy ritual,

My own least holy verses:

The sculptor carves a laurel leaf,
And writes my name and story;

And silent nature in her grief
Seems dreaming of my glory:

Just as I am made immortal,

Weep for me! they bar the portal.

But Isabel, by accident,

Was wandering by that minute; She opened that dark monument, And found her slave within it; The clergy said the Mass in vain, The College could not save me; But life, she swears, returned again

With the first kiss she

gave me:

You who deem that life is sorrow,
Weep for me again to-morrow!

TIME'S SONG

O'ER the level plains, where mountains greet me as I go,

O'er the desert waste, where fountains at my bidding flow,

On the boundless beam by day, on the cloud by

night,

I am riding hence away: who will chain my

flight?

War his weary watch was keeping, — I have

Grief within her bower was weeping, — I have dried her tear;

Pleasure caught a minute's hold, — then I hur

ried by,

Leaving all her banquet cold, and her goblet

dry.

Power had won a throne of glory: where is now

his fame?

Genius said "I live in story:" who hath heard his name?

Love beneath a myrtle bough whispered "Why

so fast?"

And the roses on his brow withered as I past.

I have heard the heifer lowing o'er the wild wave's bed;

I have seen the billow flowing where the cattle

fed;

Where began my wanderings? Memory will not

say!

Where will rest my weary wings? Science turns away!