"Led they not forth, in rapture,
A beauteous maiden there :
Resplendent as the morning sun,
Beaming with golden hair?”
"Well saw I the ancient parents,
Without the crown of pride;
They were moving slow, in weeds of woe,
No maiden was by their side!"
By J. B. READ, an American poet.
I STOOD by the open casement,
And look'd upon the night,
And saw the westward-going stars
Pass slowly out of sight.
Slowly the bright procession
Went down the gleaming arch,
And my soul discern'd the music
Of the long triumphal march;
Till the great celestial army,
Stretching far beyond the poles,
Became the eternal symbol
Of the mighty march of souls.
Onward, for ever onward,
Red Mars led down his clan;
And the Moon, like a mailed maiden,
Was riding in the van.
And some were bright in beauty,
And some were faint and small,
But these might be, in their great heights,
The noblest of them all.
Downward, for ever downward,
Behind earth's dusky shore,
They pass'd into the unknown night,
They pass'd, and were no more.
No more! oh say not so!
And downward is not just;
For the sight is weak, and the sense is dim,
That looks through heated dust.
The stars and the mailed moon,
Though they seem to fall and die,
Still sweep with their embattled lines
An endless reach of sky.
And though the hills of death
May hide the bright array,
The marshall'd brotherhood of souls
Still keeps its onward way.
Upward, for ever upward,
I see their march sublime,
And hear the glorious music
Of the conquerors of Time.
And long let me remember,
That the palest fainting one
May to diviner vision be
A bright and blazing sun.
A HEALTH OF TOWNS' BALLAD.
By EBENEZER ELLIOTT, the Corn Law Rhymer.
THE small boy in his home of sighs,
As if he hated man,
Died, with raised hand, and open eyes,
Frowning at little Ann.
Then died his bird: she wept, she sigh'd:
'Twas worn to skin and bone :
But whether it of famine died,
Or fever, is not known.
She wept, but not for John-and yet
She lov'd her brother well;
She wept-wept for his little pet!
But why she could not tell.
Where frown'd its friend, his bird she put
Within the coffin small;
But then the lid refused to shut!
She thought she heard him call!
The dead hand propp'd the coffin-lid,
Above the dreadful frown;
It would keep up! it would, and did;
The joiner screw'd it down.
And so, they slept in company;
The blighted feather'd flower,
And poor bud of humanity—
Both blighted in one hour.
Farewell, thou old street-shunning lane
Where John whole hours would stay,
When welcomed flowers came back again,
To welcome rainbow'd May!
Flowers which by name he once could call !
For he, with childish pride,
Had kept, at home, a funeral
Of flowers, that weekly died.
His father, who loved wild flowers, too,
Had taught the child their names,
Though, with a florist's pride, he grew
Outlandish flowers, in frames.
Where lay the father on the floor,
Was laid the coffin small;
The mother lay behind the door,
So, there were four in all;
The blasted, black, once beauteous thorn,
That never more would grow;
The rose, once sweet as dewy morn;
The blighted bud of woe;
And, happiest there of all, the bird
That ne'er saw God's bless'd sun,
Or growing flower; ne'er saw, or heard,
Tree wave, or river run.
The rats peep'd out behind the door,
And loth they seem'd to go;
The rats jump'd down beneath the floor,
Into the sewer below.
Men raised, in haste, the coffins three,
In fearful haste were they :
Ann, famish'd, follow'd gloomily,
And heard the parson pray.
Grey-hair'd he was, a grey-hair'd youth,
Kind, humble, just, and wise;
He look'd on wo-worn toil and truth
With pity's tearful eyes:
For he, a poor man's friendless son,
Once suffer'd long distress,
And hard up-hill his way had won
To honour'd usefulness.
His gown'd back to the wind he turn'd,
And waved the holy book:
On corpses three, by one child mourn'd,
He look'd, with solemn look:
Behind him far, two youths well clad
Stood mute, with ladies two:
Before him gasp'd the bann'd and bad,
A poor death-daring crew:
One feebly clasp'd a dying child,
Sobbing; another said,
"Thank God for Plague!" and darkly smiled; A third said, "God is dead!"
Their famine grinn'd-What could it less?
Their sadness wore a frown;
Their "loop'd and window'd raggedness"
Blasphemed the parson's gown.
But when that grey-hair'd pastor spoke,
Their prostrate hearts arose,
And trembling hope, like starlight, broke
On each despairer's woes:
"In life," he said, "we are in death,
Through death to life we rise:
In fear man draws his fleeting breath,
In sorrow lives and dies:
We come like shadows-and are gone;
Dust are we, dust to be;
Until this mortal hath put on
Its immortality."
Let's not unman each other-part at once:
All farewells should be sudden, when for ever,
Else they make an eternity of moments,
And clog the last sad sands of life with tears.
Ah! there is something holy in this hush-
This lake-like, still submergency of sound,
On whose unbroken quietudes our voices
Are as a desecration: and our steps
Fall on the throbbing silence, as a wail
Amidst the harmonious choruses of heaven-
As a tooth-grinding jar among the harps
Of angels and of hierarchies.
What do we here? Our very heart's pulsations,
Though they be low, and muffled like death-tolls,
Are out of tune with this most musical silence:
For they have something human in them-speak
Of petty purposes, and all the broils
That rack the bosom of mortality:
But night is God and nature's. "Tis the house, Black-pillar'd and sky-roof'd, where they two hold Their grand unutterable intercourse.
Oh sad no more! oh sweet no more!
Oh strange no more!
By a moss'd brook bank, on a stone,
I smelt a wildweed flower alone:
There was a ringing in my ears,
And both my eyes gush'd out with tears.
Surely, all pleasant things had gone before,
Low buried fathom deep beneath with thee,
No more!
ALFRED TENNYSON.
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