Whence man to an immortal birth
Shall rise in deathless bloom;

That nothing in its bosom dies,
But all, in endless change,
Shall, in some brighter form, arise,
Or brighter region range.

On this fair couch then rest thy head
In peace, poor child of sorrow;
For He, the God of truth, has said,

"Thou shalt be changed to-morrow!"

Changed, as the saints and angels are,
To glories ever new;
Corrupt shall incorruption wear,
And death shall life renew.

"THEY WENT OUT INTO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES."

THERE's something sweet in scenes of gloom

To hearts of joy bereft ;

When hope has wither'd in its bloom,

When friends are going to the tomb,

Or in the tomb are left.

'Tis night-a lovely night :-and lo!
Like men in vision seen,

The Savior and his brethren go,
Silent, and sorrowful, and slow,

Led by heaven's lamp serene,—

From Salem's height, o'er Kedron's stream,

To Olivet's dark steep;

There o'er past joys, gone like a dream,

O'er future woes, that present seem,

In solitude to weep.

Heaven on their earthly hopes has frown'd:
Their dream of thrones has fled;

The table, that his love has crown'd,
They ne'er again shall gather round,
With Jesus at their head.

Blast not, O God, this hope of ours,
The hope of sins forgiven;-
Then when our friends the grave devours,
When all the world around us lowers,
We'll look from earth to heaven.

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 sere.

Heap'd in the hollows of the grove the wither'd 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 shrub

the jay,

And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprung and stood

In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sister

hood?

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 perish'd long ago, And the wild-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;

But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the

wood,

And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,

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 more.

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.

EPITAPH.

HERE in a little cave,

The prettiest nook of this most grassy vale,
All amid lilies pale,

That turn

Their heads into my little vault and mourn,-
Stranger, I've made my grave.

I am not all forgot,

A small hoarse stream murmurs close by my pillow,
And o'er me a green willow

Doth weep,

Still questioning the air, "Why doth she sleep,

The girl, in this cold spot ?"

Even the very winds

Come to my cave and sigh: they often bring
Rose leaves upon their wing,

To strew

Over my earth, and leaves of violet blue;
In sooth, leaves of all kinds.

Fresh is my mossy bed:

The frequent pity of the rock falls here,
A sweet, cold, silent tear :-

I've heard,

Sometimes, a wild and melancholy bird
Warble at my grave head.

Read this small tablet o'er

That holds mine epitaph upon its cheek of pearl :"Here lies a simple girl,

Who died

Like a pale flower nipt in its sweet spring tide
Ere it had bloom'd:"-no more.

DIRGE FOR RACHEL.

AND Rachel lies in Ephrath's land,
Beneath her lonely oak of weeping,
With mouldering heart and withering hand,
The sleep of death for ever sleeping.

The Spring comes smiling down the vale,
The lilies and the roses bringing,

But Rachel never more shall hail

The flowers that in the world are springing.