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THE TWO GRAVES.

Yet there are graves in this lonely spot,
Two humble graves,-but I meet them not.
I have seen them,-eighteen years are past,
Since I found their place in the brambles last,—
The place where, fifty winters ago,
An aged man in his locks of snow,

And an aged matron, withered with years,
Were solemnly laid, but not with tears.
For none, who sat by the light of their hearth,
Beheld their coffins covered with earth;

Their kindred were far, and their children dead,
When the funeral prayer was coldly said.

Two low green hillocks, two small gray stones,
Rose over the place that held their bones ;
But the grassy hillocks are levelled again,
And the keenest eye might search in vain,
'Mong briers, and ferns, and paths of sheep,
For the spot where the aged couple sleep.

Yet well might they lay, beneath the soil
Of this lonely spot, that man of toil,

And trench the strong hard mould with the spade,
Where never before a grave was made;
For he hewed the dark old woods away,

And gave the virgin fields to the day,—
And the gourd and the bean, beside his door,
Bloomed where their flowers ne'er opened before;
And the maize stood up, and the bearded rye
Bent low in the breath of an unknown sky.

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THE TWO GRAVES.

'Tis said that when life is ended here,
The spirit is borne to a distant sphere;
That it visits its earthly home no more,
Nor looks on the haunts it loved before.
But why should the bodiless soul be sent
Far off, to a long, long banishment?

Talk not of the light and the living green!
It will pine for the dear familiar scene;

It will yearn, in that strange bright world, to behold
The rock and the stream it knew of old.

'Tis a cruel creed, believe it not!

Death to the good is a milder lot.

They are here, they are here,-that harmless pair,
In the yellow sunshine and flowing air,

In the light cloud-shadows, that slowly pass,
In the sounds that rise from the murmuring grass.
They sit where their humble cottage stood,
They walk by the waving edge of the wood,
And list to the long accustomed flow

Of the brook that wets the rocks below.
Patient, and peaceful, and passionless,
As seasons on seasons swiftly press,
They watch, and wait, and linger around,

Till the day when their bodies shall leave the ground.

THE NEW MOON.

WHEN, as the gairish day is done,
Heaven burns with the descended sun,
'Tis passing sweet to mark,
Amid that flush of crimson light,
The new moon's modest bow grow bright,
As earth and sky grow dark.

Few are the hearts too cold to feel
A thrill of gladness o'er them steal,
When first the wandering eye
Sees faintly, in the evening blaze,
That glimmering curve of tender rays
Just planted in the sky.

The sight of that young crescent brings Thoughts of all fair and youthful thingsThe hopes of early years;

And childhood's purity and

grace,

And joys that like a rainbow chase
The passing shower of tears.

The captive yields him to the dream
Of freedom, when that virgin beam

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THE NEW MOON.

Comes out upon the air;
And painfully the sick man tries
To fix his dim and burning eyes
On the soft promise there.

Most welcome to the lover's sight,
Glitters that pure, emerging light;
For prattling poets say,

That sweetest is the lovers' walk,
And tenderest is their murmured talk,
Beneath its gentle ray.

And there do graver men behold
A type of errors, loved of old,
Forsaken and forgiven;

And thoughts and wishes not of earth,
Just opening in their early birth,

Like that new light in heaven.

THE GLADNESS OF NATURE.

Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,

When our mother Nature laughs around; When even the deep blue heavens look glad, And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?

There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren,
And the gossip of swallows through all the sky;
The ground-squirrel gaily chirps by his den,
And the wilding bee hums merrily by.

The clouds are at play in the azure space,

And their shadows at play on the bright green vale, And here they stretch to the frolic chase,

And there they roll on the easy gale.

There's a dance of leaves in that aspen bower, There's a titter of winds in that beechen tree, There's a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower, And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea.

And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles
On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray,
On the leaping waters and gay young isles;

Ay, look, and he'll smile thy gloom away.

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