Standing beside his grave, as the moon-beams flickered on the marble, contending with the shadows of o’erhanging leaves that rustled in the night-breeze, I thought how rapidly every haunt of my own bright, holiday youth was yielding to the inroads of another populous capital. The pond on which we used to ply the armed heel when winter ruled the year, has disappeared.—Its site is occupied with civic palaces. The shady glen where the winged hours of starry summer nights flew all unheeded by in converse with the loved who are no more, lies bare and sered beneath the August sun!—The very stream that wound so gracefully among the trees is dry!—The dews of heaven that fed its crystal sources fall now in vain upon a mountain mass of marble—column,—plynth and dome—rising in mockery of posthumous benevolence,—a long enduring witness of perverted trust! Where are the few and fondly cherished who shared the converse of those happy hours?—One lies deep in the coral groves of the Hesperides!—One fell a victim to a philanthropic spirit when the plague of Indoostan ravaged the vallies of the West!—Another!—Strangers tread lightly round his narrow house in the gardens of Père-la-Chaise!—The last—
“Peace to thy broken heart and early grave!”
But why repeat these woes that are the lot of all?—Who is there that has learned the value of the baubles that entice us here—Wealth! Fame! Power! or sublunary Love!—but will join in the secret aspiration with which I left the silent resting-place of a perturbed spirit—“Take! oh! Take me home!”
WESTERN HOSPITALITY.
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BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.
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Hard by I’ve a cottage that stands near a wood,
A stream glides in peace at the door,