That enclosure in the old burial-place is sacred to many hearts. I have seen the mother sitting beside it, and have heard her, holding the little hands of her child between her's, repeat the tale of sorrow, until it's blue eyes filled with tears at the sad recital. I have listened to the voice of the summer night-wind, as I hung over the rude paling; have watched the stars looking down with their tremulous beams upon the green graves; absorbed in the recollection of the beauty that was laid beneath; and might have listened and watched until they paled in the morning twilight, but for the deep, solemn sound of the old church-clock, warning me of the hour of midnight.
[HOPE: FROM THE GERMAN.]
Hope on the cradled infant smiles,
And plays round the frolicksome boy;
The youth with her magical enchantment beguiles,
Nor can age her power destroy;
For when in death at last he lies,
Hope sits on the grave and points to the skies.
Nor is this the fair dream, unsubstantial and vain,
Of a head with wild fancies elate;
The heart from within echoes loudly again,
'We are born for a happier state:'
And what that voice would bid us believe,
The hoping soul will never deceive!
[AN OLD MAN'S REMINISCENCE.]
'An old revolutionary officer, now living in New York at the advanced age of ninety-one, in every respect a gentleman of the old school, paid a visit, some eight years since, to a friend in Albany; and while there, was taken to the house and room in which, fifty years before, he had been married. In a letter to his grand-daughter he gave an account of this visit, and his feelings on the occasion; and she, having a rhyming propensity, threw the dear old gentleman and his reminiscence into the accompanying lines.'
An old man stood, in serious mood, within an ancient room,
And o'er his features gathered fast a shade of deeper gloom,
While to his eye, bedimmed with age, came up the gushing tears,
As Memory from her hidden cells recalled long-buried years.