Orphans, from whose young lids the light of joy
Fled early, silent lovers, who had given
All that they lived for to the arms of earth,
Came often, o'er the recent graves to strew
Their offerings, rue, and rosemary, and flowers.

The pilgrim bands who passed the sea to keep Their Sabbaths in the eye of God alone, In his wide temple of the wilderness,

Brought not these simple customs of the heart With them. It might be, while they laid their dead

By the vast solemn skirts of the old groves, And the fresh virgin soil poured forth strange flowers

About their graves; and the familiar shades
Of their own native isle and wonted blooms
And herbs were wanting, which the pious hand
Might plant or scatter there, these gentle rites

Passed out of use.

known,

Now they are scarcely

And rarely in our borders may you meet
The tall larch, sighing in the burying-place,
Or willow, trailing low its boughs to hide
The gleaming marble. Naked rows of graves
And melancholy ranks of monuments

Are seen instead, where the coarse grass, between,

Shoots up its dull green spikes, and in the wind Hisses, and the neglected bramble nigh,

Offers its berries to the schoolboy's hand,

In vain-they grow too near the dead. Yet here,
Nature, rebuking the neglect of man,
Plants often, by the ancient mossy stone,

The brier rose, and upon the broken turf

That clothes the fresher grave, the strawberry

plant

Sprinkles its swell with blossoms, and lays forth Her ruddy, pouting fruit.

*

"BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN."

Он, deem not they are blest alone.
Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep;
The Power who pities man, has shown
A blessing for the eyes that weep.

The light of smiles shall fill again
The lids that overflow with tears;

And weary hours of woe and pain

Are promises of happier years.

There is a day of sunny rest

For every dark and troubled night; And grief may bide an evening guest, But joy shall come with early light.

And thou, who, o'er thy friend's low bier,
Sheddest the bitter drops like rain,

Hope that a brighter, happier sphere
Will give him to thy arms again.

Nor let the good man's trust depart,
Though life its common gifts deny,—
Though with a pierced and bleeding heart,
And spurned of men, he goes to die.

For God hath marked each sorrowing day And numbered every secret tear,

And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay

For all his children suffer here.

"NO MAN KNOWETH HIS SEPUL

CHRE."

WHEN he, who, from the scourge of wrong,
Aroused the Hebrew tribes to fly,

Saw the fair region, promised long,
And bowed him on the hills to die;

God made his grave, to men unknown,
Where Moab's rocks a vale infold,

And laid the aged seer alone

To slumber while the world grows old.