"My mother used to tell me of
A better land afar,
I've seen it through the prison bars
Where burns the evening star.
"O let us find a new home there,
I will be brave and true;
You cannot leave me here alone,
O let me die with you!"
The gentle tones were drowned by shrill
And long-protracted cries;
The father on his darling gazed,
The child looked on the skies.
Anon, far up the cloudless blue,
Unseen by mortal eye,
God's angels with two spirits passed
To purer realms on high.
The one was touched with earthly hues,
And dim with earthly care,
The other, as a lily's cup,
Unutterably fair.
THE DYING YEAR
With dirge-like music, low,
Sounds forth again the solemn harp of Time;
Mass for the buried hours, a funeral chime
O'er human joy and woe.
The sere leaves wail around thy passing bier,
Speed to thy dreamless rest, departing year!
Yet, ere thy sable pall
Cross the wide threshold of the mighty Past,
Give back the treasures on thy bosom cast;
Earth would her gems recall:
Give back the lily's bloom and violet's breath,
The summer leaves that bowed before the reaper Death.