LINES. 67

LINES,

'ON THE DEATH OP S. O. TORREY.

Gone before us, O our brother,

To the spirit-land!
Vainly look we for another

In thy place to stand.
Who shall offer youth and beauty

On the wasting shrine
Of a stern and lofty duty,

With a faith like thine?

Oh ! thy gentle smile of greeting

Who again shall see?
Who amidst the solemn meeting

Gaze again on thee ?—
Who, when peril gathers o'er us,

Wear so calm a brow?
Who, with evil men before us,

So serene as thou?

Early hath the spoiler found thee,

Brother of our love 1
Autumn's faded earth around thee,

And its storms above!
Evermore that turf lie lightly,

And, with future showers,
O'er thy slumbers fresh and brightly

Blow the summer flowers 1

In the locks thy forehead gracing,

Not a silvery streak;
Nor a line of sorrow's tracing

On thy fair young cheek;
Eyes of light and Jips of roses,

Such as Hylas wore— Over all that curtain closes,

Which shall rise no more!

Will the vigil Love is keeping

Round that grave of thine,
Mournfully, like Jazer weeping

Over Sibmah's vine 5—
Will the pleasant memories, swelling

Gentle hearts, of thee,
In the spirit's distant dwelling

All unheeded be?

If the spirit ever gazes,

From its journeyings, back;
If the immortal ever traces

O'er its mortal track;
Wilt thou not, O brother, meet us

Sometimes on our way,
And, in hours of sadness, greet us

As a spirit may?

Peace be with thee, O our brother,

In the spirit-land I
Vainly look we for another

In thy place to stand.
Unto Truth and Freedom giving

All thy early powers,
Be thy virtues with the living,

And thy spirit ours!

A LAMENT.

-" The parted spirit,

Knoweth it not our sorrow? Ansvrereth not
Its blessing to our tears?"

The circle is broken—pne seat is forsaken,—
One bud from the tree of our friendship is

shaken—
One heart from among us no longer shall thrill
With joy in our gladness, or grief in our ill.

A LAMENT. 69

Weep!—lonely and lowly, are slumbering now The light of her glances, the pride of her brow, Weep !—sadly and long shall we listen in vain To hear the soft tones of her welcome again.

Give our tears to the dead! For humanity**

claim From its silence and darkness is ever the same; The hope of that World whose existence is

bliss
May not stifle the tears of the mourners of this.

For, oh! if one glance the freed spirit can throw
On the scene of its troubled probation below,
Than the pride of the marble—the pomp of the

dead— To that glance will be dearer the tears which we

shed.

Oh, who can forget the mild light of her smile, Over, lips moved with music and feeling the while— The eye's deep enchantment, dark, dream-like,

and clear, In the glow of its gladness—the shade of its tear.

And the charm of her features, while over the

whole Played the hues of the heart and the sunshine of

soul,— And the tones of her voice, like the music which

seems Murmured low in our ears by the Angel of dreams I

But holier and dearer our memories hold

Those treasures of feeling, more precious than

gold— The love and the kindness and pity which gave Fresh flowers for the bridal, green wreaths for the

grave!

The heart ever open to Charity's claim,
Unmoved from its purpose by censure and blame,
While vainly alike on her eye and her ear
Fell the scorn of the heartless, the jesting and jeer

How true to our hearts was that beautiful sleeper
With smiles for the joyful, with tears for the

weeper!— Yet, evermore prompt, whether mournful or gay, With warnings in love to the passing astray.

For, though spotless herself, she could sorrow for

them Who sullied with evil the spirit's pure gem; And a sigh or a tear could the erring reprove, And the sting of reproof was still tempered by

love.

As a cloud of the sunset, slow melting in heaven,
As a star that is lost when the daylight is given,
As a glad dream of slumber, which wakens in bliss,
She hath passed to the world of the holy from this.

DANIEL WHEELER.

[daniel Wheeler, a minister of the Society of Friends, and who had labored in the cause of his Divine Master in Great Britain, Russia, and the islands of the Pacific, died in New York in the spring of 1840, while on a religious visit to this country.]

Oh, dearly loved!
And worthy of our love!—No more
Thy aged form shall rise before
The hushed and waiting worshipper,
In meek obedience utterance giving
To words of truth, so fresh and living,
That, even to the inward sense,

DANIEL WHEELER. 71

They bore unquestioned evidence
Of an anointed Messenger!
Or, bowing down thy silver hair
In reverent awfulness of prayer—

The world, its time and sense, shut out— The brightness of Faith's holy trance Gathered upon thy countenance,

As if each lingering cloud of doubt—
The cold, dark shadows resting here
In Time's unluminous atmosphere—

Were lifted by an angel's hand,
And through them on thy spiritual eye
Shone down the blessedness on high,

The glory of the Better Land!

The oak has fallen!
While, meet for no good work, the vine
May yet its worthless branches twine.
Who knoweth not that with thee fell
A great man in our Israel?
Fallen, while thy loins were girded still,

Thy feet with Zion's dews still wet,

And in thy hand retaining yet
The pilgrim's staff and scallop-shell!
Unharmed and safe, where, wild and free,

Across the Neva's cold morass
The breezes from the Frozen Sea

With winter's arrowy keenness pass; Or, where the unwarning tropic gale Smote to the waves thy tattered sail, Or, where the noon-hour's fervid heat Against Tahiti's mountains beat;

The same mysterious hand which gave

Deliverance upon land and wave, Tempered for thee the blasts which blew

Ladaga'e frozen surface o'er, 4nd blessed for thee the baleful dew

Of evening upon Eimeo's shore, Beneath thiy sunny heaven of ours,