Slumber 'neath the mouldy stone, Come and strew my grave with flowers, Hiding 'mongst the moss and stones. For alas! etc. Come when waves of sorrow roll, I will soothe you while you pray. For alas! etc. Come when age has flecked your hair, When we'll meet in yonder clime. For alas! etc. You will not forget, I know, Where my "mortal" sleeps below; Though the proud may pause and sneer, You will hold it sacred, dear! For alas etc. MINNIE, EDITH, AND LIZZIE. UNNY-haired and bright-eyed maidens, Gushing out with joyous laughter, Singing, dancing 'mongst the flowers, All unconscious of the darkness, SONNET. AY, can it be, that those bright phantasies :- (Our noble ones long passed into the sky ;) Those radiant visions, fair-eyed Fancy sees When thought steals back in dreamy reveries: Steal o'er the burden of our nightly dreams. And soothe and nerve us when we need it most, SUNRISE. LOW creeps the light athwart the concave still, Steals a low whisper on the breathless calm, Bringing the scent of opening flowers, a balm ; Breaks o'er the earth a grand, a rapturous thrill, The chant of waters and the song-bird's trill; The clouds fold up their curtains snowy white; The sleepy stars fade noiselessly from sight. Bright Phoebus mounts above the crimson hill; The sheeted mists like baffled hosts retire, Wan Zephyr comes to wanton with the flowers, The stream meanders on, a string of fire, And light and music fill earth's sylvan bowers; Bright dewdrops shine and tremble everywhere: O Sceptic, look and blush, for God is there! MAN O' MOW. REMINISCENCES. INSCRIBED TO G. H. JET me ship my oars a little Drifting idly down the stream, On the cragged sun-tinted summit To the South a dusky turret From the highest apex climbs, Like a fragment of some giant Bulwark of the feudal times; Thence the mountain breaks and straggles Roughly to the vale afar, In a score of ragged plateaus, Girt with gleaming shale and spar. And among the knolls and hollows, Villas, blocks, and chimneys rise; All a-stir with toiling livers, All a-pant with enterprise. Eastward, where adoring Eos Wakens Goa's Memnon lyre, Rise the many-shaped and broken Torrent-hills of Staffordshire; Crowding upward like the billows On a tempest tortured sea; 'Mongst whose scalloped crests and curvings Throbs a monster Industry. To the West, a vast campagna, Growth of huge umbrageous trees, Where the beeches crowd the thickest On the sward; and here and there |