LIVING ALONE.

BY T. FLINT.

There are, to whom to live alone,
Sounds in their ear the funeral moan
Of winter's night breeze, sad and deep,
A prelude of sepulchral sleep.
To live alone I have no dread,
And careless hear upon my bed,
Between the wintry night wind's howl,
The hootings of the forest owl;
Reckless I wrap myself in gloom,
And court endurance for the tomb.
Time was, my feelings were not so:
When Spring upon the drifted snow
Breath'd warm, and bade the waters flow;
When turtles coo'd; on the green hills
Skip'd the spring lambs, murmur'd the rills,
And spread their cups the daffodils,
I was as gay, and with me played
Full many a budding, blue-eyed maid;
My heart, the merriest thing of all,
Bounded within me at the call
Of laughing nature. Ah! 'twas then
The thought of living far from men,
And festive throngs, and social glee,
Had seemed a living death to me.
I loved; but I was plain and poor—
My fair one rich—and from the door
She sign'd my passport—bade me go,
And, as I might, digest my wo.
One shrug'd, and said, "he must confess,
To cling to one so purposeless,
Would be a folly all would blame
As more than due to friendship's claim."
Another cut our feeble tye,
Because I pass'd all chances by
To mend my fortunes, unimprov'd,
Too weak to be sustain'd, or lov'd.
At last I found a pretty one,
Who lov'd me for myself alone.
I was thrice dear to her, but she
A thousand times more dear to me:
I was the happiest one that liv'd,
And should have been, while she surviv'd.
I saw her suffering, saw her fail—
And in my eye the sun grew pale;
Nature's stern debt she early paid,
And in the earth my gem was laid:
My heart then grew, as marble, cold—
And, fortune's worst endur'd, grew bold.
Supine in nature's busy hive,
Men deem'd me dead, though still alive.
One and another slid away,
And left me lonely, old and gray.
'Tis all a vanity, I said,
And to my lot bow'd down my head—
Found pensive gladness in my gloom,
A prelude requiem of the tomb,
And felt myself too sternly wise
With useless grief to blear my eyes.
As my slow hours still strike their knell,
I fancy it my passing bell,
And strive, ere yet I pass away,
To grow insensible as clay.