STANZAS.

167

Stanzas.

FROM THE FRENCH OF DE LAMARTINE.

WITHIN my breast I said, O what is life?

Shall I still follow those before me gone? Tread the broad way so often travel'd o'er,

And man's immortal folly make mine own?

One seeks for treasures on the mighty deep

His hopes, his vessel, sleep beneath the wave; Another climbs the dazzling heights of Fame,

And while resound the echoes-finds a grave.

One, with our varied passions, weaves his plot; He founds a throne, and mounts thereon to fall; Another reads his fate in woman's eyes,

And fetter'd, dies in Beauty's silken thrall.

The sluggard in the arms of hunger sleeps;
The laborer guides the fertilizing plow;
The sage reflects and reads; the warrior strikes;
And care knits close the beggar's weary brow.

And whither go they? where the sere leaves go
Flying before the winter's dreary blast;
The generations which Time sows and reaps
Thus in their labors fade-and they are past.

And in the struggle Time is conqueror;
As the full stream engulfs its sandy shore
So he devours these transitory shades:
They live-they die-and they are seen no

more.

I sing the Master I adore, amid

The city's din, and in the deserts calm; In forest glade, or on the trackless sea,

When morning wakes, or evening breathes her

balm.

The earth demands, Who is the Lord? Tis He Whose soul immense pervades the realms of

space;

Whose single step measures infinity,

By whom the Sun in glory runs his race.

"Tis He! it is the Lord! let me repeat
To earth's inhabitants His glorious name;
A golden lamp before His altars hung,

I'll shine for Him until He part my frame.

THE ANGELS OF GRIEF.

169

The Angels of Grief.

WITH silence only as their benediction
God's angels come,

Where, in the shadow of a great affliction,
The soul sits dumb.

Yet would we say, what every heart approveth, Our Father's will,

Calling to Him the dear ones whom He loveth, Is mercy still.

Not upon us or ours the solemn angel
Hath evil wrought;

The funeral anthem is a glad evangel-
The good die not!

God calls our loved ones, but we lose not wholly What he has given;

They live on earth, in thought and deed, as truly As his in heaven.

Lines

SUGGESTED BY THE SIGHT OF SOME LATE AUTUMN FLOWERS.

THOSE few pale autumn flowers,

How beautiful they are!

Than all that went before,

Than all the summer store,

How lovelier far!

And why? They are the last!

The last the last! the last!

O! by that little word

How many thoughts are stirr'd;

The sister of the past!

Pale flowers! pale perishing flowers!

Ye're types of precious things;
Types of those bitter moments,
That flit, like life's enjoyments,
On rapid, rapid wings.

LINES.

Last hours with parting dear ones,

(That time the fastest spends,) Last tears in silence shed,

Last words half uttered,

Last looks of dying friends.

Who but would fain compress
A life into a day-

The last day spent with one
Who, ere the morrow's sun,
Must leave us, and for aye?

O precious, precious moments!
Pale flowers! ye're types of those;
The saddest! sweetest! dearest!
Because, like those, the nearest
To an eternal close.

Pale flowers! pale, perishing flowers!
I woo your gentle breath.

I leave the summer rose-
For younger, blither brows,

Tell me of change and death.

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