THOU GOD SEEST ME. E'en from myself sometimes I part- To prompt my pulse, inspire my breath. 227 Of all that I have done or said How little can I now recall! Forgotten things to me are dead; With Thee they live, Thou know'st them all. The moment comes, the only one Of all my time to be foretold; Though when, and where, and how, can none Of all the race of man unfold. That moment comes when strength must fail, When health, and hope, and comfort flown, I must go down into the vale And shade of death with Thee alone. Alone with Thee, in that dread strife, Exchanged for immortality. Then, when th' unbodied spirit lands Be mine eternal portion this, Since Thou wert always here with me, That I may view Thy face in bliss, And be for evermore with Thee! "PASSING AWAY."-A DREAM. 229 Passing Away."-A Dream. Was it the chime of a tiny bell That came so sweet to my dreaming ear,Like the silvery tones of a fairy's shell That he winds on the beach so mellow and clear, When the winds and the waves lie together asleep, And the moon and the fairy are watching the deep, She dispensing her silvery light, And he his notes, as silvery quite, While the boatman listens and ships his oar But no; it was not a fairy's shell, Blown on the beach so mellow and clear, For a beautiful clock from the ceiling hung, And a plump little girl for a pendulum swung, (As you 've sometimes seen in a little ring That hangs in his cage, a canary bird swing,) And she held to her bosom a budding bouquet, And as she enjoy'd it she seem'd to say— "Passing away! Passing away!” O how bright were the wheels that told Of the lapse of Time, as they moved round slow! And the hands, as they swept o'er the dial of gold, Seem'd to point to the girl below. And lo! she had changed:-in a few short hours While I gazed at that fair one's cheek, a shade Of thought or care stole softly over, Like that by a cloud in a summer's day made, Looking down on a field of blossoming clover. "PASSING AWAY."-A DREAM. 231 The rose yet lay on her cheek, but its flush That march'd so calmly around, above her, Was a little dimm'd,-as when Evening steals Upon Noon's hot face:-yet one could not but love her; For she look'd like a mother whose first babe lay Rock'd on her breast as she swung all day,And she seem'd, in the same silver tone, to say-Passing away! Passing away! 66 יין . While yet I look'd, what a change there came! Her eye was quench'd and her cheek was wan; Stooping and staffed was her wither'd frame, Yet just as busily swung she on; The garland beneath her had fallen to dust, Grew crooked and tarnish'd, but on they kept; From the shriveled lips of the toothless crone,(Let me never forget till my dying day The tone or the burden of her lay,)— 66 Passing away! Passing away!" |