The Death of Saul | Page 7

the snowdrops and violets, waking from sleep,?Look forth at the dawning day.
Down by the brooklet--by murmuring rills,?By rivers that glide along;?Where the lark in the heavens melodiously trills,?And the air the wild blossom with perfume fills,?The shimmering leaves among.
Through the still valley; along by the pool,?Where the daffodil's bosom of gold?So shyly expands to the breezes cool?As they murmur, like children coming from school,?In whisperings over the wold.
In the dark coppice, where fairies dwell,?Where the wren and the red-breast build;?Along the green lanes, through dingle and dell,?O'er bracken and brake, and moss-covered fell,?Where the primroses pathways gild.
Hither and thither the tiny feet?Of children gaily sped,?In the cool grey dawn of the morning sweet,?Plucking wild flowers--an offering meet?To garnish the graves of the dead.
Out from the beaten pathway, quaint and white,?The village church--a crumbling pile--is seen;?It stands in solitude midst mounds of green?Like ancient dame in moss-grown cloak bedight.
The mantling ivy clings around its form--?The patient growth of many and many a year.?As though a gentle hand had placed it there?To shield the tottering morsel from the storm.
A sombre cypress rears its mournful head?Above the porch, through which, in days gone by,?Young men and maidens sped so hopefully,?That now lie slumbering with the silent dead:
The silent dead, that round the olden pile?Crumble to dust as though they ne'er had been.?Whose graven annals, writ o'er billows green,?Though voiceless, tell sad stories all the while.
And as they speak in speechless eloquence,?The waving shadows of the cypress fall?In spectral patches on the quaint old wall,?Nodding in wise and ghostly reticence
In silent sanction at the stories told?By each decrepit, wizen-featured stone,?That seems to muse, like ancient village crone?Belost in thought o'er memories strange and old.
Outside the stunted boundary, a row?Of poplars tall--beside whose haughty mien?And silky rustlings of whose robes of green?The lowly church still humbler seems to grow.
A-near the lych-gate in the crumbling wall,?A spreading oak, grotesque and ancient, stands,?Like aged monk extending prayerful hands?In silent benediction over all,
'Twas early morn: the red sun glinted o'er?The hazy sky-line of the far-off hill:?Below, the valley slept so calm and still--?A misty sea engirt by golden shore.
Out in the dim and dreamy distance rose?A spectral range of alp-like scenery--?Mountain on mountain, far as eye could see,?Their foreheads white and hoar with wintry snows.
And as I leaned the low-built wall upon?That shut the little churchyard from the road,?Children and maidens into Death's abode,?With wild flow'rs laden, wandered one by one.
And in their midst, stooping and white with age,?Rich in their wealth of quaint old village lore,?Came ancient dames, with faces furrowed o'er,?That told of griefs in life's long pilgrimage.
The sun is rising now: the poplar tips?Are touched with liquid light: the gravestones old,?And hoary church, are flushed with fringe of gold,?As though embraced by angel's hallowed lips.
And with the morning sunshine children roam?To place wild flowers where the loved ones slept;?O'er father, mother, sister--long since swept?Away by death--with blossoms sweet they come.
Silent reminders of abiding love!?What tender language from each petal springs!?Affection's tribute! Heart's best offerings!?Wanderers, surely, from the realms above!
For heart-to-heart, and life-to-life, had been?The loves of those who were and those who are;?Till death had severed them--O, cruel bar!?Leaving a dark and unknown stream between.
And on that stream, in loving fancy tossed,?Each faithful heart its floral tribute threw,?As though the hope from out the tribute grew?To bridge the gulf the one beloved had crossed.
Near yonder grave there stands a widowed life:?Husband and son beneath the grave-stone rest:?Some laurels tell, by tender lip caressed,?The changeless love of mother and of wife.
And o'er the bright green leaflets as they lie?She scatters snowdrops with their waxen leaves,?And all the while her troubled bosom heaves?In tenderness, with many a sorrowing sigh.
Out from the light, to where the cypress shade?In mournful darkness falls, a figure crept;?And as she knelt, the morning breezes swept?A cloud of hair about her drooping head.
Her feet were small and slender, bare and white--?White as the daisy-fringe on which she trod;?Like shimmering snowdrops in the greening sod,?Or glow-worms glistening in the Summer night.
And as deep down in gloomy chasms seen?By those up-looking, stars in daylight shine,?So shone the beauty of her face divine?In the dark shadows of the cypress green.
Her girlish hands a primrose wreath enwove,?With fingers deft, and eyes with tears bedimmed:?No lovelier face the painter's art e'er limned,?No poet's thought e'er told of sweeter love
Than that young mother's, as, with tender grace,?She kissed the chaplet ere she laid it down?Upon a tiny hillock, earthy-brown--?Of first and only child the resting place.
And then the few stray blossoms that were left?She kissed and strewed upon the little mound--?Looked lingering back towards the sacred ground,?As from the shade she bore her heart bereft.
As gentle ripples, from the side we lave?Of placid lake, will reach the other side,?So, o'er Death's river--silent, dark, and wide--?Blossoms may bear the kiss