THE DYING RAVEN.

I needs must mourn for thee. For I-who have No fields, nor gather into garners-I

Bear thee both thanks and love, not fear nor hate.

And now, farewell! The falling leaves, ere long, Will give thee decent covering. Till then, Thine own black plumage, that will now no more Glance to the sun, nor flash upon my eyes, Like armour of steel'd knight of Palestine, Must be thy pall. Nor will it moult so soon As sorrowing thoughts on those borne from him, fade In living man.

Who scoffs these sympathies,

Makes mock of the divinity within ;

Nor feels he gently breathing through his soul,
The universal spirit.-Hear it cry,

"How does thy pride abase thee, man, vain man!
How deaden thee to universal love,

And joy of kindred with all humble things-
God's creatures all!"

And surely it is so.

He who the lily clothes in simple glory,

He who doth hear the ravens cry for food,
Hath on our hearts, with hand invisible,

In signs mysterious, written what alone

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Our hearts may read.-Death bring thee rest, poor bird.

13

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

BY WILLIAM C. BRYANT.

THE melancholy days are come,
The saddest of the year,

Of wailing winds, and naked woods,
And meadows brown and sear.
Heap'd in the hollows of the grove,
The wither'd leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust,
And to the rabbit's tread.
The robin and the wren are flown,

And from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow,

Through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers,
That lately sprang and stood

In brighter light and softer airs,
A beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves;

The gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds,

With the fair and good of ours.

The rain is falling where they lie,
But the cold November rain
Calls not from out the gloomy earth,

The lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet,

They perish'd long ago,

And the brier-rose and the orchis died,

Amid the summer glow;

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

But on the hill the golden-rod,

And the aster in the wood,

And the yellow sun-flower by the brook

In autumn beauty stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven,
As falls the plague on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone,

From upland glade and glen.

And now, when comes the calm, mild day,
As still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee
From out their winter home;

When the sound of dropping nuts is heard,
Though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light

The waters of the rill,

The south wind searches for the flowers

Whose fragrance late he bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood

And by the stream no more.

And then I think of one who in
Her youthful beauty died,

The fair, meek blossom that grew up
And faded by my side;

In the cold, moist earth we laid her,
When the forest cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely
Should have a life so brief:
Yet not unmeet it was that one,

Like that young friend of ours,

So gentle and so beautiful,

Should perish with the flowers,

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"PASS ON, RELENTLESS WORLD."

BY GEORGE LUNT.

SWIFTER and swifter, day by day,
Down Time's unquiet current hurl'd,
Thou passest on thy restless way,
Tumultuous and unstable world!
Thou passest on! Time hath not seen
Delay upon thy hurried path;

And prayers and tears alike have been
In vain to stay thy course of wrath!

Thou passest on, and with thee go

The loves of youth, the cares of age;
And smiles and tears, and joy and woe,
Are on thy history's troubled page!
There, every day, like yesterday,

Writes hopes that end in mockery;
But who shall tear the veil away
Before the abyss of things to be?

Thou passest on, and at thy side,
Even as a shade, Oblivion treads,
And o'er the dreams of human pride
His misty shroud for ever spreads;
Where all thine iron hand hath traced
Upon that gloomy scroll to-day,
With records ages since effaced,—
Like them shall live, like them decay,

"PASS ON, RELENTLESS WORLD."

Thou passest on, with thee the vain,

Who sport upon thy flaunting blaze, Pride, framed of dust and folly's train, Who court thy love, and run thy ways: But thou and I,-and be it so,

Press onward to eternity;

Yet not together let us go

To that deep-voiced but shoreless sea.

Thou hast thy friends,-I would have mine;
Thou hast thy thoughts,-leave me my own:
I kneel not at thy gilded shrine,

I bow not at thy slavish throne;
I see them pass without a sigh,-
They wake no swelling raptures now,
The fierce delights that fire thine eye,
The triumphs of thy haughty brow.

Pass on, relentless world! I grieve

No more for all that thou hast riven; Pass on, in God's name, only leave

The things thou never yet hast given— A heart at ease, a mind at home,

Affections fix'd above thy sway,

Faith set upon a world to come,
And patience through life's little day.

13*

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