Such thoughts to Lucy I will give While she and I together live, Here in this happy dell."
Thus nature spake.
-The work was done
How soon my Lucy's race was run!
She died, and left to me
This heath, this calm and quiet scene;
The memory of what has been,
And never more will be.
GRAVE OF THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON.-Mrs. Sigourney.
MOTHER of him whose godlike fame The good throughout the world revere, Ah! why, without a stone or name, Thus sleep'st thou unregarded here? Fair pensile branches o'er thee wave, And nature decks the chosen dell; Yet surely o'er thy hallow'd grave A nation's mournful sighs should swell! Rome, with a burst of filial pride, The mother of her Gracchi view'd; And why should we restrain the tide Of reverential gratitude?
She to sublime Volumnia paid
Her tribute of enraptured tears, When the dread chief that voice obeyed Which sternly curb'd his infant years.
Thou in the days of Sparta's might, Had'st high on her illustrious roll
Been rank'd, amidst those matrons bright, Who nobly nursed the great of soul.
For disciplined in Wisdom's school, The lofty pupil own'd thy sway; And well might he be skill'd to rule, So early nurtured to obey.
No enervating arts refined
To slumber lull'd his heaven-porn might; No weak indulgence warp'd thy mind, To cloud a hero's path of light.
Say-when upon thy shielding breast The savior of his country hung, When his soft lip to thine was prest, Wooing the accents from thy tongue,
Saw'st thou, prescient, o'er his brow, The shadowy wreath of laurel start? Or, did thy nightly dream bestow High visions of his glorious part?
And when his little hands were taught By thee, in simple prayer to rise, Say-were thine own devotions fraught With heighten'd incense for the skies?
Well may that realm confiding rest, Heroes and mighty chiefs to see, Which finds its infant offspring blest With monitors and guides like thee.
A future age, than ours more just, With his, shall blend thy honored name, And rear, exulting, o'er thy dust,
The monument of deathless fame.
And thither bid young mothers wend, To bless thy spirit as they rove, And learn, while o'er thy tomb they bend, For heaven to train the babes they love.
Oh! what is Beauty's power?
It flourishes and dies;
Will the cold earth in silence break,
To tell how soft, how smooth a cheek Beneath its surface lies?
Mute, mute is all
O'er Beauty's fall;
Her praise resounds no more when mantled in her pall.
The most beloved on earth
Not long survives to-day ; So music past is obsolete,
And yet 'twas sweet, 'twas passing sweet, But now, tis gone away.
Thus does the shade
In memory fade,
When in forsaken tomb the form beloved is laid.
Then since this world is vain,
And volatile and fleet,
Why should I lay up earthly joys
Where rust corrupts, and moth destroys,
And cares and sorrows eat?
Why fly from ill
With anxious skill,
When soon this hand will freeze, this throbbing heart be still.
Come Disappointment, come!
Thou art not stern to me : Sad monitress! I own thy sway; A votary sad in early day,
I bend my knee to thee. From sun to sun
My race will run,
I only bow and say, my God thy will be done.
LUCY.-Wordsworth.
Three years she grew in sun and shower, Then nature said, "a lovelier flower On earth was never sown; This child I to myself will take; She shall be mine, and I will make A lady of my own.
"Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse
The girl, in rock and plain,
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, Shall feel an overseeing power
To kindle and restrain.
"She shall be sportive as the fawn That wild with glee across the lawn Or up the mountain springs; And hers shall be the breathing balm And hers the silence and the calm Of mute insensate things.
"The floating clouds their state shall lend To her; for her the willow bend;
Nor shall she fail to see
Even in the motions of the storm
Grace that shall mould the maiden's form By silent sympathy.
"The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round; And beauty, born of murmuring sound, Shall pass into her face.
"And vital feelings of delight
Shall rear her form to stately height,
Her virgin bosom swell;
ODE SUNG AT THE FUNERAL OF DR. SPURZHEIM.
Stranger, there is bending o'er thee Many an eye with sorrow wet: All our stricken hearts deplore thee: Who, that knew thee, can forget? Who forget what thou hast spoken? Who, thine eye, thy noble frame? But, that golden bowl is broken, In the greatness of thy fame.
Autumn's leaves shall fall and wither, On the spot where thou shalt rest; 'Tis in love we bear thee thither
To thy mourning Mother's breast. For the store of science brought us, For the charm thy wisdom gave, To the lessons thou hast taught us, Can we give thee but a grave? Nature's Priest, how pure and fervent Was thy worship at her shrine! Friend of man, of God the servant, Advocate of truths divine,- Taught and charmed as by no other We have been, and hoped to be, But, while waiting round thee, Brother, For thy light-'tis dark with thee. Dark with thee!-No, thy Creator,
All whose creatures and whose laws Thou didst love,-shall give thee greater Light than earth's, as earth withdraws. To thy God, thy godlike spirit
Back we give in filial trust:
Thy cold clay-we grieve to bear it To its chamber-but we must.
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