In all the tree tops Hearest thou Hardly a breath; The birds are asleep in the trees. Wait soon like these Thou too shalt rest. Goethe, CHARLES SUMNER. GARLANDS upon his grave, And flowers upon his hearse, And to the tender heart and brave, The tribute of this verse. His was the troubled life, The conflict and the pain, The grief, the bitterness of strife, Like Winkelried, he took Into his manly breast The sheaf of hostile spears, and broke A path for the oppressed; Then from the fatal field Borne like a warrior on his shield ! So should the brave depart. Death takes us by surprise, And stays our hurrying feet; The great design unfinished lies, Our lives are incomplete. But in the dark unknown Perfect their circles seem, Even as a bridge's arch of stone Is rounded by the stream. Alike are life and death, When life in death survives, And the uninterrupted breath Were a star quenched on high, For ages would its light, Still travelling downward from the sky, Shine on our mortal sight. So when a great man dies, For years beyond our ken, The light he leaves behind him lies Upon the paths of men, VOX POPULI. WHEN Marzaran, the magician, But the lessening rumour ended So it happens with the poets, Where Badoura is unknown. A ROSARY OF SONNETS. THE OLD BRIDGE AT FLORENCE. TADDEO GADDI built me. I am old; Five centuries old. I plant my foot of stone Upon the Arno, as St. Michael's own Was planted on the dragon. Fold by fold Beneath me, as it struggles, I behold Its glistening scales. Twice hath it overthrown My kindred and companions. Me alone It moveth not, but is by me controlled. Were driven from Florence; longer still ago NATURE. As a fond mother, when the day is o'er, By promises of others in their stead, Which, though more splendid, may not please him more. So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest so gently, that we go Scarce knowing if we wished to go or stay, Being too full of sleep to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we know. THE GRAVE OF WASHINGTON IRVING. HERE lies the gentle humourist, who died Here in the autumn of his days he came, Of summers full of sunshine and of showers, ELIOT'S OAK. THOU ancient oak! whose myriad leaves are loud With sounds of unintelligible speech, Sounds as of surges on a shingly beach, Or multitudinous murmurs of a crowd; With some mysterious gift of tongues endowed, Thou speakest a different dialect to each; |