Death in this tomb his weary bones hath laid,
Sick of dominion o’er the human kind;
Behold what devastations he hath made,
Survey the millions by his arm confined.
“Six thousand years has sovereign sway been mine,
None but myself can real glory claim;
Great Regent of the world I reigned alone,
And princes trembled when my mandate came...
My son, thou wast my heart’s delight,
Thy morn of life was gay and cheery;
That morn has rushed to sudden night,
Thy father’s house is sad and dreary.
I held thee on my knee, my son!
And kissed thee laughing, kissed thee weeping;
But ah! thy little day is done,
Thou ’rt with thy angel sister sleeping.
The staff, on...
Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days!
None knew thee but to love thee,
Nor named thee but to praise.
Tears fell when thou wert dying,
From eyes unused to weep,
And long, where thou art lying,
Will tears the cold turf steep.
When hearts, whose truth was proven,
Like thine, are laid in earth,...
The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit’s tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all...
O thou great Wrong, that, through the slow-paced years,
Didst hold thy millions fettered, and didst wield
The scourge that drove the laborer to the field,
And turn a stony gaze on human tears,
Thy cruel reign is o’er;
Thy bondmen crouch no more
In terror at the menace of thine eye;
For He who marks the bounds of guilty power...
It is not death to die,
To leave this weary road,
And, midst the brotherhood on high,
To be at home with God.
It is not death to close
The eye long dimmed by tears,
And wake in glorious repose,
To spend eternal years.
It is not death to bear
The wrench that sets us free
From dungeon-chain, to breathe...
Her suffering ended with the day,
Yet lived she at its close,
And breathed the long; long night away
In statue-like repose.
But when the sun in all his state
Illumed the eastern skies,
She passed through Glory’s morning gate
And walked in Paradise!
How still the room is! But a while ago
The sound of sobbing voices vexed my ears,
And on my face there fell a rain of tears—
I scarce knew why or whence, but now I know.
For this sweet speaking silence, this surcease
Of the dumb, desperate struggle after breath,
This painless consciousness of perfect peace,
Which fills the place of...
Between the falling leaf and rose-bud’s breath;
The bird’s forsaken nest and her new song
(And this is all the time there is for Death);
The worm and butterfly—it is not long!
The general dashed along the road
Amid the pelting rain;
How joyously his bold face glowed
To hear our cheers’ refrain!
His blue blouse flapped in wind and wet,
His boots were splashed with mire,
But round his lips a smile was set,
And in his eyes a fire.
A laughing word, a gesture kind,—
We did not ask for...
