LINES ON PASSING THE GRAVE OF

MY SISTER.

BY MICAH P. FLINT.

On yonder shore, on yonder shore,

Now verdant with the depths of shade,
Beneath the white-armed sycamore,

There is a little infant laid.
Forgive this tear.—A brother weeps.
'Tis there the faded floweret sleeps.

She sleeps alone, she sleeps alone,

And summer's forests o'er her wave;
And sighing winds at autumn moan

Around the little stranger's grave,
As though they murmured at the fate
Of one so lone and desolate.

176 ON PASSING THE GRAVE OF MY SISTER.

In sounds that seem like sorrow's own,

Their funeral dirges faintly creep;
Then deepening to an organ tone,

In all their solemn cadence sweep,
And pour, unheard, along the wild,
Their desert anthem o'er a child.

She came, and passed. Can I forget,

How we whose hearts had hailed her birth,
Ere three autumnal suns had set,

Consigned her to her mother Earth!
Joys and their memories pass away;
But griefs are deeper ploughed than they.

We laid her in her narrow cell,

We heaped the soft mould on her breast;
And parting tears, like rain-drops, fell

Upon her lonely place of rest.
May angels guard it ;—may they bless
Her slumbers in the wilderness.

She sleeps alone, she sleeps alone;

For, all unheard, on yonder shore,
The sweeping flood, with torrent moan,

At evening lifts its solemn roar,
As, in one broad, eternal tide,
The rolling waters onward glide.

ON PASSING THE GRAVE OF MY SISTER. 177

There is no marble monument,

There is no stone, with graven lie, To tell of love and virtue blent

In one almost too good to die. We needed no such useless trace To point us to her resting place.

She sleeps alone, she sleeps alone;

But, midst the tears of April showers,
The genius of the wild hath strown

His germs of fruits, his fairest flowers,
And cast his robes of vernal bloom
In guardian fondness o'er her tomb.

She sleeps alone, she sleeps alone;

Yet yearly is her grave-turf dressed,
And still the summer vines are thrown,

In annual wreaths, across her breast,
And still the sighing autumn grieves,
And strews the hallowed spot with leaves.

TO A CITY PIGEON.

BY NATHANIEL P. WILLIS.

Stoop to my window, thou beautiful dove !
Thy daily visits have touched my love,
I watch thy coming, and list the note
That stirs so low in thy mellow throat,

And my joy is high
To catch the glance of thy gentle eye.

Why dost thou sit on the heated eaves,
And forsake the wood with its freshened leaves ?
Why dost thou haunt the sultry street,
When the paths of the forest are cool and sweet?

How canst thou bear
This noise of people—this sultry air ?

Thou alone of the feathered race
Dost look unscared on the human face;
Thou alone, with a wing to flee,
Dost love with man in his haunts to be;

TO A CITY PIGEON.

179

And “the gentle dove”
Has become a name for trust and love.

A holy gift is thine, sweet bird !
Thou'rt named with childhood's earliest word!
Thou’rt linked with all that is fresh and wild
In the prisoned thoughts of the city child,

And thy glossy wings
Are its brightest image of moving things.

It is no light chance. Thou art set apart,
Wisely by Him who has tamed thy heart,
To stir the love for the bright and fair
That else were sealed in this crowded air;

I sometimes dream
Angelic rays from thy pinions stream.

Come then, ever, when daylight leaves
The page I read, to my humble eaves,
And wash thy breast in the hollow spout,
And murmur thy low sweet music out!

I hear and see
Lessons of Heaven, sweet bird, in thee !