40

THE SYLPH OF AUTUMN.

And fruits of various hue,
And harvests rich of golden grain,
That dance in waves along the plain
To merry song of reaping swain,
Beneath the welkin blue;

With these I may not urge my suit,
Of Summer's patient toil the fruit,
For mortal purpose given;

Nor may it fit my sober mood

To sing of sweetly murmuring flood,
Or dyes of many-coloured wood,

That mock the bow of heaven.

But, know, 'twas mine the secret power
That waked thee at the midnight hour

In bleak November's reign:

'Twas I the spell around thee cast,

When thou didst hear the hollow blast

In murmurs tell of pleasures past,
That ne'er would come again:

And led thee, when the storm was o'er,

To hear the sullen ocean roar,

By dreadful calm opprest;

Which, still, though not a breeze was there,

"Twas I, when thou, subdued by wo, Didst watch the leaves descending slow To each a moral gave;

And as they moved in mournful train, With rustling sound, along the plain, Taught them to sing a seraph's strain Of peace within the grave.

42

THE SYLPH OF AUTUMN.

And then, upraised thy streaming eye,
I met thee in the western sky

In pomp of evening cloud;

That, while with varying form it rolled,
Some wizard's castle seemed of gold,
And now a crimsoned knight of old,
Or king in purple proud.

And, last, as sunk the setting sun,
And Evening with her shadows dun,
The gorgeous pageant past,
'Twas then of life a mimic show,
Of human grandeur here below,
Which thus beneath the fatal blow
Of Death must fall at last.

Oh, then with what aspiring gaze
Didst thou thy tranced vision raise
To yonder orbs on high,

And think how wondrous, how sublime
"Twere upward to their spheres to climb,

And live, beyond the reach of Time,

Child of Eternity!

THE OLD NORTH BURIAL GROUND.

BY WILLIAM B. TAPPAN.

I STAND where I have stood before in boyhood's sunny

prime,

The same yet not the same, but one who wears the touch of Time;

And gaze around on what was then familiar to the eye, But whose inconstant features tell that years have jour neyed by,

Since o'er this venerable ground a truant child I played, And chased the bee and plucked the flower, where ancient dust is laid:

And hearkened, in my wondering mood, when tolled the passing bell,

And started at the coffin's cry, as clods upon it fell.

These mossy tombs I recollect, the same o'er which I pored, The same these rhymes and texts, with which my memory was stored;

These humble tokens, too, that lean, and tell where resting bones

Are hidden, though their date and name have perished from the stones.

here!

What hearts have ached, what eyes have given this con

scious earth the tear

How many friends, whose welcome cheered their now deserted doors,

Have, since my last sojourning, swelled these melancholy stores!

Yon spot, where in the sunset ray a single white stone

gleams,

I've visited, I cannot tell how often in my dreams,