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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!

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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
Of those around thy homage pay;

But wilt thou never kindly deign

To think of him that's far away?
Thy form, thine eye, thine angel smile,
For many years I may not see;

But wilt thou not sometimes the while,
My sister dear, remember me?

But not in fashion's brilliant hall,
Surrounded by the gay and fair,

And thou the fairest of them all,—
O, think not, think not of me there.
But when the thoughtless crowd is gone,
And hushed the voice of senseless glee,

And all is silent, still, and lone,

And thou art sad, remember me.

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TO A SISTER.

Remember me-but, loveliest, ne'er,
When, in his orbit fair and high,
The morning's glowing charioteer
Rides proudly up the blushing sky;
But when the waning moonbeam sleeps
At moonlight on that lonely lea,
And nature's pensive spirit weeps
In all her dews, remember me.

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,
The hour when, on the gentle lake,
The sportive wavelets, blue and clear,
Soft rippling, to the margin break;
But when the deaf'ning billows foam
In madness o'er the pathless sea,
Then let thy pilgrim fancy roam
Across them, and remember me.

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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
Some faithful friend of me and thee,
Softly, sometimes, to him repeat

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,
Sweet spirit, then remember me.

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.

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