WRITTEN AT MY MOTHER'S GRAVE.

BY GEORGE D. PRENTICE.

THE trembling dew-drops fall

Upon the shutting flowers, like souls at rest,
The stars shine gloriously, and all,

Save me, is blest.

Mother, I love thy grave!

The violet, with its blossoms blue and mild,
Waves o'er thy head-when shall it wave
Above thy child?

'Tis a sweet flower, yet must

Its bright leaves to the coming tempest bow,
Dear mother, 'tis thine emblem-dust
Is on thy brow!

WRITTEN AT MY MOTHER'S GRAVE.

181

And I could love to die,

To leave untasted life's dark, bitter streams,

By thee, as erst in childhood, lie,

And share thy dreams.

And must I linger here,

To stain the plumage of my sinless years,
And mourn the hopes to childhood dear
With bitter tears!

Ay, must I linger here,

A lonely branch upon a blasted tree,
Whose last frail leaf, untimely sere,
Went down with thee!

Oft from life's withered bower,

In still communion with the past I turn,
And muse on thee, the only flower
In memory's urn.

And, when the Evening pale

Bows like a mourner on the dim blue wave,
I stray to hear the night-winds wail

I

Around thy grave.

Where is thy spirit flown?

gaze above-thy look is imaged there,

T

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WRITTEN AT MY MOTHER'S GRAVE.

I listen and thy gentle tone

Is on the air.

Oh come, while here I press

My brow upon thy grave-and, in those mild And thrilling tones of tenderness,

Bless, bless thy child!

Yes, bless thy weeping child,

And o'er thine urn-religion's holiest shrineOh give his spirit undefiled

To blend with thine.

EXTRACT FROM PROMETHEUS.

BY JAMES G. PERCIVAL.

OUR thoughts are boundless though our frames are frail,
Our souls immortal, though our limbs decay;
Though darkened in this poor life by a veil
Of suffering, dying matter, we shall play
In truth's eternal sunbeams; on the way
To Heaven's high capitol our car shall roll;

The temple of the power whom all obey,
That is the mark we tend to, for the soul
Can take no lower flight, and seek no meaner goal.

I feel it-though the flesh is weak, I feel

The spirit has its energies untamed

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PROMETHEUS.

By all its fatal wanderings; time may heal

The wounds which it has suffered; folly claimed

Too large a portion of its youth; ashamed

Of those low pleasures, it would leap and fly,
And soar on wings of lightning, like the famed
Elijah, when the chariot rushing by

Bore him with steeds of fire triumphant to the sky.

We are as barks afloat upon the sea

Helmless and oarless, when the light has fled,
The spirit, whose strong influence can free
The drowsy soul, that slumbers in the dead,
Cold night of mortal darkness; from the bed
Of sloth he rouses at her sacred call,

And kindling in the blaze around him shed,
Rends with strong effort sin's debasing thrall,
And gives to God, his strength, his heart, his mind, his all.

Our home is not on earth; although we sleep,
And sink in seeming death awhile, yet then
The awakening voice speaks loudly, and we leap
To life, and energy, and light, again;
We cannot slumber always in the den

Of sense and selfishness; the day will break,
Ere we for ever leave the haunts of men;

Even at the parting hour the soul will wake,
Nor like a senseless brute its unknown journey take.