THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.
THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the withered leaves lie
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the
And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day.
Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood
In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain,
Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones again.
The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;
THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.
And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no
And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, The fair, meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side: In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief: Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours, So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.
OH! could I hope the wise and pure in heart Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,- I would take up the hymn to Death, and say To the grim power, The world hath slandered thee And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow They place an iron crown, and call thee king Of terrors, and the spoiler of the world, Deadly assassin, that strik'st down the fair,
The loved, the good-that breath'st upon the lights Of virtue set along the vale of life,
And they go out in darkness. I am come, Not with reproaches, not with cries and prayers, Such as have stormed thy stern insensible ear From the beginning. I am come to speak Thy praises. True it is, that I have wept Thy conquests, and may weep them yet again: And thou from some I love wilt take a life Dear to me as my own. Yet while the spell Is on my spirit, and I talk with thee In sight of all thy trophies, face to face, Meet is it that my voice should utter forth
Thy nobler triumphs: I will teach the world To thank thee.--Who are thine accusers ?--Who? The living!--they who never felt thy power, And know thee not. The curses of the wretch Whose crimes are ripe, his sufferings when thy hand Is on him, and the hour he dreads is come, Are writ among thy praises. But the good- Does he whom thy kind hand dismissed to peace, Upbraid the gentle violence that took off
His fetters, and unbarred his prison cell?
Raise then the Hymn to Death.
God hath anointed thee to free the oppressed
And crush the oppressor. When the armed chief, The conqueror of nations, walks the world, And it is changed beneath his feet, and all Its kingdoms melt into one mighty realm-- Thou, while his head is loftiest, and his heart Blasphemes, imagining his own right hand Almighty, sett'st upon him thy stern grasp, And the strong links of that tremendous chain That bound mankind are crumbled; thou dost break Sceptre and crown, and beat his throne to dust.
Then the earth shouts with gladness, and her tribes Gather within their ancient bounds again.
Else had the mighty of the olden time,
Nimrod, Sesostris, or the youth who feigned His birth from Lybian Ammon, smote even now The nations with a rod of iron, and driven
Their chariot o'er our necks.
In thy good time, the wrongs of those who know
Only to lay the sufferer asleep,
Where he who made him wretched troubles not His rest-thou dost strike down his tyrant too. Oh, there is joy when hands that held the scourge Drop lifeless, and the pitiless heart is cold. Thou too dost purge from earth its horrible And old idolatries ;-from the proud fanes Each to his grave their priests go out, till none Is left to teach their worship; then the fires Of sacrifice are chilled, and the green moss O'ercreeps their altars; the fallen images Cumber the weedy courts, and for loud hymns, Chanted by kneeling crowds, the chiding winds Shriek in the solitary aisles. When he Who gives his life to guilt, and laughs at all The laws that God or man has made, and round Hedges his seat with power, and shines in wealth,-- Lifts up his atheist front to scoff at Heaven, And celebrates his shame in open day, Thou, in the pride of all his crimes, cutt'st off The horrible example. Touched by thine, The extortioner's hard hand foregoes the gold Wrung from the o'er-worn poor. The perjurer, Whose tongue was lithe, e'en now, and voluble Against his neighbour's life, and he who laughed And leaped for joy to see a spotless fame Blasted before his own foul calumnies, Are smit with deadly silence. He, who sold His conscience to preserve a worthless life,
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