Yet all things must die. The stream will cease to flow; The wind will cease to blow; The clouds will cease to fleet; The heart will cease to beat; For all things must die. All things must die. Spring will come never more. Oh! vanity! Death waits at the door. See! our friends are all forsaking The wine and the merrymaking. We are call'd- - we must go. Laid low, very low,
In the dark we must lie. The merry glees are still; The voice of the bird Shall no more be heard, Nor the wind on the hill.
All things were born. Ye will come never more, For all things must die.
LEONINE ELEGIACS.
LOW-FLOWING breezes are roaming the broad valley dimm'd in the gloaming:
Thoro' the black-stemm'd pines only the far river shines.
Creeping thro' blossomy rushes and bowers of rose-blowing bushes, Down by the poplar tall rivulets babble and fall.
Barketh the shepherd-dog cheerly; the grasshopper carolleth clearly; Deeply the wood-dove coos; shrilly the owlet halloos;
Winds creep; dews fall chilly in her first sleep earth breathes stilly: Over the pools in the burn water-gnats murmur and mourn.
Sadly the far kine loweth: the glimmering water out-floweth :
Twin peaks shadow'd with pine slope to the dark hyaline.
Low-throned Hesper is stayed between the two peaks; but the Naiad Throbbing in mild unrest holds him beneath in her breast.
The ancient poetess singeth, that Hesperus all things bringeth, Smoothing the wearied mind: bring me my love, Rosalind.
Thou comest morning or even; she cometh not morning or even. False-eyed Hesper, unkind, where is my sweet Rosalind?
OF A SECOND-RATE SENSITIVE MIND.
O GOD! my God! have mercy now. I faint, I fall. Men say that Thou Didst die for me, for such as me, Patient of ill, and death, and scorn, And that my sin was as a thorn
Among the thorns that girt Thy brow, Wounding Thy soul.-That even now, In this extremest misery
Of ignorance, I should require A sign! and if a bolt of fire Would rive the slumbrous summer
While I do pray to Thee alone, Think my belief would stronger grow: Is not my human pride brought low? The boastings of my spirit still? The joy I had in my freewill
All cold, and dead, and corpse-like grown?
And what is left to me, but Thou And faith in Thee? Men pass me by; Christians with happy countenancesAnd children all seem full of Thee! And women smile with saint-like glances
Like Thine own mother's when she bow'd
Above Thee, on that happy morn When angels spake to men aloud, And Thou and peace to earth were born,
Goodwill to me as well as all— I one of them: my brothers they : Brothers in Christ- a world of peace And confidence, day after day; And trust and hope till things should cease,
And then one Heaven receive us all.
How sweet to have a common faith! To hold a common scorn of death! And at a burial to hear
The creaking cords which wound and eat
Into my human heart, whene'er Earth goes to earth, with grief, not fear,
With hopeful grief, were passing sweet!
Thrice happy state again to be The trustful infant on the knee! Who lets his rosy fingers play About his mother's neck, and knows Nothing beyond his mother's eyes. They comfort him by night and day; They light his little life alway;
He hath no thought of coming woes; He hath no care of life or death; Scarce outward signs of joy arise, Because the Spirit of happiness And perfect rest so inward is; And loveth so his innocent heart, Her temple and her place of birth, Where she would ever wish to dwell, Life of the fountain there, beneath Its salient springs, and far apart, Hating to wander out on earth, Or breathe into the hollow air, Whose chillness would make visible Her subtil, warm, and golden breath, Which mixing with the infant's blood, Fulfils him with beatitude. Oh! sure it is a special care Of God, to fortify from doubt, To arm in proof, and guard about With triple-mailèd trust, and clear Delight, the infant's dawning year. Would that my gloomed fancy were As thine, my mother, when with brows Propt on thy knees, my hands upheld In thine, I listen'd to thy vows, For me outpour'd in holiest prayer- For me unworthy!-and beheld Thy mild deep eyes upraised, that knew The beauty and repose of faith, And the clear spirit shining thro'. Oh! wherefore do we grow awry From roots which strike so deep? why dare
Paths in the desert? Could not I Bow myself down, where thou hast knelt,
The other? I am too forlorn,
Too shaken: my own weakness fools My judgment, and my spirit whirls, Moved from beneath with doubt and fear.
"Yet," said I in my morn of youth, The unsunn'd freshness of my strength, When I went forth in quest of truth, "It is man's privilege to doubt, If so be that from doubt at length, Truth may stand forth unmoved of change,
An image with profulgent brows, And perfect limbs, as from the storm Of running fires and fluid range Of lawless airs, at last stood out This excellence and solid form Of constant beauty. For the Ox Feeds in the herb, and sleeps, or fills The horned valleys all about, And hollows of the fringed hills In summer heats, with placid lows Unfearing, till his own blood flows
About his hoof. And in the flocks The lamb rejoiceth in the year, And raceth freely with his fere, And answers to his mother's calls From the flower'd furrow. In a time, Of which he wots not, run short pains Thro' his warm heart; and then, from
He knows not, on his light there falls A shadow; and his native slope, Where he was wont to leap and climb, Floats from his sick and filmed eyes, And something in the darkness draws His forehead earthward, and he dies. Shall man live thus, in joy and hope As a young lamb, who cannot dream, Living, but that he shall live on? Shall we not look into the laws Of life and death, and things that
And things that be, and analyze Our double nature, and compare All creeds till we have found the one, If one there be ?" Ay me! I fear All may not doubt, but everywhere Some must clasp Idols. Yet, my God, Whom call I Idol ? Let Thy dove Shadow me over, and my sins
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