200 THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD. But what to them the dirge, the knell ? Rung on the coffin's lid. The slumberer's mound grows fresh and Then slowly disappears; The mosses creep, the gray stones lean, No lip the silent dust may claim, That press'd the breathing clay. green, Go where the ancient pathway guides, Hast thou a tear for buried love? All that a century left above, Go, read it in an hour! The Indian's shaft, the Briton's ball, The hot shell, shattering in its fall, Here scatter'd death; yet seek the spot, No altar, and they need it not Who leave their children free! THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD. Look where the turbid raindrops stand The knightly crest, the shield, the brand Alas! for every tear is dried Those blazon'd tablets knew, Or gaze upon yon pillar'd stone,* There stands the goblet and the sun,—- Where lives the memory of the dead? Lean o'er the slender western wall, The breath that bids the blossom fall An exile's† date and doom; And one amid these shades was born, Once beaming as the summer's morn, 201 *The tomb of the VASSALL family is marked by a freestone tablet, supported by five pillars, and bearing nothing but the sculptured reliefs of the goblet and the sun,-Vas-Sol,-which designated a powerful family, now almost forgotten. The exile referred to in this stanza was a native of Honfleur, in Normandy. 202 THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD. If sinless angels love as we, Who stood thy grave beside, I wander'd to thy buried mound, The level of the glaring ground, As if a sultan's white-robed slaves Nay, the soft pinions of the air, Its breath of love may almost bear, May sweetest dews and warmest ray When damps beneath, and storms above, Which breathed a sigh o'er other's dust, THE SHADED WATER. BY WILLIAM G. SIMMS. WHEN that my mood is sad, and in the noise And sit me down beside this little brook: It is a quiet glen as you may see, Shut in from all intrusion by the trees, Few know its quiet shelter,-none, like mé, And listening, as the voiceless leaves respire,— When the far-travelling breeze, done wandering, Rests here his weary wing. And all the day, with fancies ever new, And sweet companions from their boundless store Of merry elves, bespangled all with dew, Fantastic creatures of the old time lore,— 204 THE SHADED WATER. A gracious couch,—the root of an old oak, It hangs above the stream that idly plies, There, with eye sometimes shut, but upward bent, Sweetly I muse through many a quiet hour, While every sense, on earnest mission sent, Returns, thought-laden, back with bloom and flower, Pursuing, though rebuked by those who moil, A profitable toil. And still the waters, trickling at my feet, Wind on their way with gentlest melody, Yielding sweet music, which the leaves repeat, Above them, to the gay breeze gliding by,— Yet not so rudely as to send one sound Through the thick copse around. Sometimes a brighter cloud than all the rest Hangs o'er the archway opening through the trees, Breaking the spell that, like a slumber, press'd How like its sure and undisturb'd retreat, The bending trees that overshade my form; |