CCC SONNET. Rise, said the Master, come unto the feast : She is gone from us for a few short hours 5 Into her bridal closet, there to wait That gives her entrance to the blissful bowers. We have not seen her yet, though we have been And laid fresh flowers, and whispered short and soft; From the clear west is fading fast away. CCCI THE VOICELESS. Henry Alford. We count the broken lyres that rest The wild flowers who will stoop to number? A few can touch the magic string, ΙΟ 5 And noisy fame is proud to win them; Alas for those that never sing, But die with all their music in them! Nay, grieve not for the dead alone, Whose song has told their hearts' sad story: Weep for the voiceless, who have known IO Not where Leucadian breezes sweep O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, But where the glistening night-dews weep On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. 15 O hearts that break, and give no sign, CCCII 20 Oliver Wendell Holmes. A THANKSGIVING. Lord, in this dust thy sovereign voice I am all thine-thy care and choice, I praise Thee, while thy providence For blessings given, ere dawning sense Blessings in boyhood's marvelling hour, Blessings of friends, which to my door And choicer still, a countless store Yet, Lord, in memory's fondest place I would not miss one sigh or tear, Hope thrives in straits, in weakness love, 35 John Henry Newman. CCCIII THE GRAVE. I stood within the grave's o'ershadowing vault; Faint from the entrance came a daylight ray, 5 ΙΟ Around me stretched the slumbers of the dead, The former men of every age and place, From all their wanderings gathered; round me lay; I saw whole cities, that in flood or fire, Or famine or the plague, gave up their breath; 15 20 I saw the old world's white and wave-swept bones, 25 A giant heap of creatures that had been; Far and confused the broken skeletons Lay strewn beyond mine eye's remotest ken. 30 Death's various shrines-the Urn, the Stone, the LampWere scattered round, confused, amid the dead; Symbols and Types were mouldering in the damp, Their shapes were waning, and their meaning fled. Unspoken tongues, perchance in praise or woe, 35 The thick small dust of those they once had wept. No hand was here to wipe the dust away; No spirit sitting by its form of clay; Nor sigh nor sound from all the heaps of Death. 40 One place alone had ceased to hold its prey; cc, He only with returning footsteps broke 45 The eternal calm wherewith the Tomb was bound; Among the sleeping Dead alone He woke, And blessed with outstretched hands the host around. Well is it that such blessing hovers here, 50 They to the verge have followed that they love, 55 But vainly there the mourners seek relief All that have died, the Earth's whole race, repose, CCCIV MY PSALM. I mourn no more my vanished years: An April rain of smiles and tears, My heart is young again. The west winds blow, and singing low, I hear the glad streams run; The windows of my soul I throw 60 5 |