Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower, Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team a-field! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud! impute to these the fault, If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault, The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. Can storied urn or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust, Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, Th' applause of listening senates to command, And read their history in a nation's eyes, Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, Their names, their years, spelt by th' unlettered Muse, And many a holy text around she strews, For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind? On some fond breast the parting soul relies, For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonored dead, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn, "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. "One morn I missed him on the 'customed hill, Along the heath, and near his favorite tree; Another came-nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he; "The next, with dirges due, in sad array, Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne:Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." THE EPITAPH. Here rests his head upon the lap of earth Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, He gained from heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend. No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode (There they alike in trembling hope repose), The bosom of his Father and his God. BEAUTIFUL DREAMS. She lay unconscious, in dreamy sleep, "Beautiful dreams! beautiful dreams!" Again we listened; she slumbered on; She lifted her large and lustrous eyes, "Such beautiful, beautiful dreams!" No more-on the wings of those beautiful dreams As we folded her hands to their last repose, And the stars came out and wrote on high, In golden letters, the mystery "Beautiful dreams! beautiful dreams!" Ah! no mere vision of other days, Of youth's remembered story, Had lit her fair and fading face Shining across death's pallid night, From the land that was breaking on her sight, White hands beckoned across the flood; Lingering, listening, passing away, 'Beautiful dreams! beautiful dreams!" THE OLD CANOE.-ALBERT PIKE. Where the rocks are gray and the shore is steep, Where the reeds and rushes are long and rank, The useless paddles are idly dropped, Like a sea-bird's wings that the storms had lopped, Like the folded hands when the work is done; The spider stretches his silvery screen, And the solemn owl, with his dull "too-hoo," The stern, half sunk in the slimy wave, And the green moss creeps o'er its dull decay, Like the hand that plants o'er the tomb a flower, Or the ivy that mantles the falling tower; While many a blossom of loveliest hue The currentless waters are dead and still, It floats the length of the rusty chain, |