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They stood, and gazed at her who never

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Why die we not

They said; Without her, life is bitterness.' Now came the funeral-day; the simple folk

Of all that pastoral region gathered round
To share the sorrow of the cottagers.
They carved a way into the mound of snow
To the glen's side, and dug a little grave
In the smooth slope, and, following the bier,
In long procession from the silent door, 301
Chanted a sad and solemn melody:

Lay her away to rest within the ground. Yea, lay her down whose pure and innocent life

Was spotless as these snows; for she was reared

In love, and passed in love life's pleasant spring,

And all that now our tenderest love can do

Is to give burial to her lifeless limbs.'

They paused. A thousand slender voices round,

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Like currents journeying through the windless deep.

Seek'st thou, in living lays,

To limn the beauty of the earth and sky?

Before thine inner gaze

Let all that beauty in clear vision lie; 40 Look on it with exceeding love, and write The words inspired by wonder and delight.

Of tempests wouldst thou sing,

Or tell of battles — make thyself a part Of the great tumult; cling

To the tossed wreck with terror in thy heart;

Scale, with the assaulting host, the rampart's height,

And strike and struggle in the thickest fight.

MY AUTUMN WALK

ON woodlands ruddy with autumn
The amber sunshine lies;

I look on the beauty round me,
And tears come into my eyes.

1864.

For the wind that sweeps the meadows Blows out of the far Southwest, Where our gallant men are fighting, And the gallant dead are at rest.

The golden-rod is leaning,

And the purple aster waves
In a breeze from the land of battles,
A breath from the land of graves.

Full fast the leaves are dropping

Before that wandering breath; As fast, on the field of battle,

Our brethren fall in death.

Beautiful over my pathway

The forest spoils are shed;

They are spotting the grassy hillocks
With purple and gold and red.

Beautiful is the death-sleep
Of those who bravely fight
In their country's holy quarrel,
And perish for the Right.

But who shall comfort the living,

The light of whose homes is gone: The bride that, early widowed,

Lives broken-hearted on;

The matron whose sons are lying

In graves on a distant shore;
The maiden, whose promised husband
Comes back from the war no more?

I look on the peaceful dwellings
Whose windows glimmer in sight,

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