Never revives the past again;
But still thou art, in lonely hours,
To me earth’s heaven,—the azure main,—
Soft music,—and the breath of flowers;
My heart shall gain from thee its hues:
And Memory give, though Truth refuse,
The bliss that once was ours!
After this, Mr Batter read over to us a great many other curiosities, about foreign things wonderful to hear, and foreign places wonderful to behold. Moreover, also, of divers adventures by sea and land. But the time wearing late, and Tammie Bodkin having brought ben the shop-key, after putting on the window-shutters, Nanse and I, out of good-fellowship, thought we could not do less than ask the honest man, whose cleverality had diverted us so much, to sit still and take a chack of supper;—James being up in the air, from having been allowed to ride on his hobby so briskly, made only a show of objection; so, after a rizzard haddo, we had a jug of toddy, and sat round the fire with our feet on the fender—Benjie having fallen asleep with his clothes on, and been carried away to his bed. Poor bit mannikin!
I never remember to have heard James so prime either on Boston or Josephus; but as his heart warmed with the liquor and the good fire, for it was a cold rawish night,—he returned to Taffy with the pigtail’s master; and insisted, that as we had heard about his foreign sweetheart’s death, which he appeared to have taken so much to heart, we should just bear with him once more, as he read over what he called her dirgie, which was written on a half-sheet of grey mouldy paper—as if handed down from the days of the Covenanters. It jingles well; and both Nanse and me thought it gey and pretty; but eh! if ye only had heard how James Batter read it. It beat cock-fighting.
DIRGE.
I.
Weep not for her!—Oh she was far too fair,
Too pure to dwell on this guilt-tainted earth!
The sinless glory, and the golden air
Of Zion, seem’d to claim her from her birth;
A Spirit wander’d from its native Zone,
Which, soon discovering, took her for its own:
Weep not for Her!
II.
Weep not for her!—Her span was like the sky,
Whose thousand stars shine beautiful and bright;
Like flowers that know not what it is to die;
Like long-linked, shadeless months of Polar light;
Like music floating o’er a waveless lake,
While Echo answers from the flowery brake:
Weep not for Her!
III.
Weep not for her!—She died in early youth,
Ere hope had lost its rich romantic hues;
When human bosoms seem’d the homes of truth,
And earth still gleam’d with beauty’s radiant dews.
Her summer prime waned not to days that freeze;
Her wine of life was run not to the lees:
Weep not for Her!