Poems | Page 8

high,
And hear the breezes of the West
Among the threaded foliage
sigh.
Sweet Zephyr! why that sound of woe?
Is not thy home among the
flowers?
Do not the bright June roses blow,
To meet thy kiss at
morning hours?
And lo! thy glorious realm outspread--
Yon stretching valleys, green
and gay,
And yon free hill-tops, o'er whose head
The loose white
clouds are borne away.
And there the full broad river runs,
And many a fount wells fresh and
sweet,
To cool thee when the mid-day suns
Have made thee faint
beneath their heat.
Thou wind of joy, and youth, and love;
Spirit of the new-wakened

year!
The sun in his blue realm above
Smooths a bright path when
thou art here.
In lawns the murmuring bee is heard,
The wooing ring-dove in the
shade;
On thy soft breath, the new-fledged bird
Takes wing, half
happy, half afraid.
Ah! thou art like our wayward race;--
When not a shade of pain or ill

Dims the bright smile of Nature's face,
Thou lovest to sigh and
murmur still.
THE BURIAL-PLACE.°
A FRAGMENT.
Erewhile, on England's pleasant shores, our sires
Left not their
churchyards unadorned with shades
Or blossoms; and indulgent to
the strong
And natural dread of man's last home, the grave,
Its frost
and silence--they disposed around,
To soothe the melancholy spirit
that dwelt
Too sadly on life's close, the forms and hues
Of
vegetable beauty.--There the yew,
Green even amid the snows of
winter, told
Of immortality, and gracefully
The willow, a perpetual
mourner, drooped;
And there the gadding woodbine crept about,

And there the ancient ivy. From the spot
Where the sweet maiden, in
her blossoming years
Cut off, was laid with streaming eyes, and
hands
That trembled as they placed her there, the rose
Sprung
modest, on bowed stalk, and better spoke
Her graces, than the
proudest monument.
There children set about their playmate's grave

The pansy. On the infant's little bed,
Wet at its planting with
maternal tears,
Emblem of early sweetness, early death,
Nestled the
lowly primrose. Childless dames,
And maids that would not raise the
reddened eye--
Orphans, from whose young lids the light of joy

Fled early,--silent lovers, who had given
All that they lived for to the
arms of earth,
Came often, o'er the recent graves to strew
Their
offerings, rue, and rosemary, and flowers.

The pilgrim bands who passed the sea to keep
Their Sabbaths in the
eye of God alone,
In his wide temple of the wilderness,
Brought not
these simple customs of the heart
With them. It might be, while they
laid their dead
By the vast solemn skirts of the old groves,
And the
fresh virgin soil poured forth strange flowers
About their graves; and
the familiar shades
Of their own native isle, and wonted blooms,

And herbs were wanting, which the pious hand
Might plant or scatter
there, these gentle rites
Passed out of use. Now they are scarcely
known,
And rarely in our borders may you meet
The tall larch,
sighing in the burying-place,
Or willow, trailing low its boughs to
hide
The gleaming marble. Naked rows of graves
And melancholy
ranks of monuments
Are seen instead, where the coarse grass,
between,
Shoots up its dull green spikes, and in the wind
Hisses,
and the neglected bramble nigh,
Offers its berries to the schoolboy's
hand,
In vain--they grow too near the dead. Yet here,
Nature,
rebuking the neglect of man,
Plants often, by the ancient mossy stone,

The brier rose, and upon the broken turf
That clothes the fresher
grave, the strawberry vine
Sprinkles its swell with blossoms, and lays
forth
Her ruddy, pouting fruit. * * * * *
[Transcriber's note: The above 5 asterisks are printed as in the Original.
They do not represent a thought break.]
"BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN."
Oh, deem not they are blest alone
Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep;

The Power who pities man, has shown
A blessing for the eyes that
weep.
The light of smiles shall fill again
The lids that overflow with tears;

And weary hours of woe and pain
Are promises of happier years.
There is a day of sunny rest
For every dark and troubled night;
And
grief may bide an evening guest,
But joy shall come with early light.

And thou, who, o'er thy friend's low bier,
Sheddest the bitter drops
like rain,
Hope that a brighter, happier sphere
Will give him to thy
arms again.
Nor let the good man's trust depart,
Though life its common gifts
deny,--
Though with a pierced and broken heart,
And spurned of
men, he goes to die.
For God has marked each sorrowing day
And numbered every secret
tear,
And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay
For all his children
suffer here.
"NO MAN KNOWETH HIS SEPULCHRE."
When he, who, from the scourge of wrong,
Aroused the Hebrew
tribes to fly,
Saw the fair region, promised long,
And bowed him on
the hills to die;
God made his grave, to men unknown,
Where Moab's rocks a vale
infold,
And laid the aged seer alone
To slumber while the world
grows old.
Thus still, whene'er the good and just
Close the dim eye on life and
pain,
Heaven watches o'er their sleeping dust
Till the pure spirit
comes again.
Though nameless, trampled, and forgot,
His servant's humble ashes
lie,
Yet God has marked and sealed the spot,
To call its inmate