THE OLD NORTH BURIAL GROUND. 45 That spot o'er which I wept, though then too young my loss to know, As I beheld my father's form sepulchred far below. How freshly every circumstance, though seas swept wide between, And years have vanished since that hour, in vagaries I've seen! The lifted lid-that countenance-the funeral array, As vividly as if the scene were but of yesterday. How pleasant seem the moments now, as up their shad ows come, Spent in that domicil which wore the sacred name of home, How in the vista years have made, they shine with mellowed light, To which meridian bliss has nought so beautiful and bright! How happy were those fireside hours-how happy summer's walk, When listening to my father's words or joining in the talk; How passed like dreams those early hours, till down upon us burst The avalanche of grief, and laid our pleasures in the dust! 46 THE OLD NORTH BURIAL GROUND. They tell of loss, but who can tell how thorough is the stroke By which the tie of sire and son in death's for ever broke? They tell of Time!—though he may heal the heart that's wounded sore, The household bliss thus blighted, Time! canst thou again restore? Yet if this spot recalls the dead, and brings from memory's leaf A sentence wrote in bitterness, of raptures, bright and brief, I would not shun it, nor would lose the moral it will give, To teach me by the withered past, for better hopes to live. And though to warn of future wo, or whisper future bliss, One comes not from the spirit world, a witness unto this, Yet from memorials of his dust, 'tis wholesome thus to learn And print upon our thought the state to which we must return. Wherever then my pilgrimage in coming days shall be, My frequent visions, favourite ground! shall backward glance to thee; The holy dead, the bygone hours, the precepts early given, Shall sweetly soothe and influence my homeward way to heaven. TO A SISTER. BY EDWARD EVERETT. YES, dear one, to the envied train But wilt thou never kindly deign To think of him that's far away? But wilt thou not sometimes the while, But not in fashion's brilliant hall, And thou the fairest of them all,— And all is silent, still, and lone, And thou art sad, remember me. 48 TO A SISTER. Remember me-but, loveliest, ne'er, Remember me, I pray—but not In Flora's gay and blooming hour, When every brake hath found its note, And sunshine smiles in every flower; But when the falling leaf is sear, And withers sadly from the tree, And o'er the ruins of the year Cold Autumn weeps, remember me. Remember me-but choose not, dear, Remember me-but not to join If haply some thy friends should praise; 'Tis far too dear, that voice of thine, To echo what the stranger says. They know us not-but shouldst thou meet My name, and then remember me. Remember me-not, I entreat, In scenes of festal week-day joy, For then it were not kind or meet, Thy thought thy pleasure should alloy; But on the sacred, solemn day, And, dearest, on thy bended knee, When thou for those thou lov'st dost pray, Remember me-but not as I On thee for ever, ever dwell, With anxious heart and drooping eye, And doubts 'twould grieve thee should I teì; But in thy calm, unclouded heart, Where dark and gloomy visions flee, Oh there, my sister, be my part, And kindly there remember me. E |