'TIS A LOWLY GRAVE. BY W. G. SIMMS. 'Tis a lowly grave but it suits her best, Since it breathes of fragrance and speaks of rest, And meet for her is its calm repose, Whose life was so stormy and sad to its close. 'Tis a shady dell where they laid her form, A trickling stream, as it winds below, It is sweet to think, that when life is o'er, 210 'T IS A LOWLY GRAVE. One kindlier heart, all untainted by earth, That has kept the fresh bloom from its bud and its birth, Whose tears for the sorrows of youth shall be shed, And whose prayer shall still rise for the early dead. THEY say, that afar in the land of the west, There verdure fades never; immortal in bloom, Sweet strains wildly float on the breezes that kiss. But fierce as the snake, with his eyeballs of fire, When his scales are all brilliant and glowing with ire, Are the warriors to all, save the maids of their isle, Whose law is their will and whose life is their smile : From beauty, there, valor and strength are not rovers, And peace reigns supreme in the green isle of lovers. And he who has sought to set foot on its shore, DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. BY W. C. BRYANT. THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the withered leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones again. The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the wild-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow; |