Praise trembled still on each expiring breath, And holy triumph beamed from every eye.
Then gentle hands their "dust to dust" con- sign;
With quiet tears, the simple rites are said; And here they sleep, till at the trump divine, The earth and ocean render up their dead.
ON THE DEATH OF HIS ELDEST SON. CANNING.
THOUGH short thy span, God's unimpeach'd decrees,
The spoiler came; and all thy promise fair Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there! Oh! what a noble heart was here undone, When Science' self destroyed her favourite
Yes, she too much indulged thy fond pursuit, She sowed the seeds, but death has reaped the fruit.
"Twas thine own Genius gave the fatal blow, And helped to plant the wound that laid thee low:
So the struck Eagle stretched upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart, And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart:
Which made that shorten'd span one long Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel
Yet, merciful in chastening, gave thee scope For mild redeeming virtues, faith and hope, Meek resignation, pious charity;
And, since this world was not the world for thee,
Far from thy path removed, with partial
Strife, glory, gain, and Pleasure's flowery
Bade earth's temptations pass thee harmless by,
And fix'd on Heaven thy unreverted eye! Oh! mark'd from birth, and nurtur❜d for the skies!
In youth, with more than learning's wisdom, wise!
As sainted martyrs, patient to endure! Simple, as unwean'd infancy, and pure! Pure from all stain (save that of human clay, Which Christ's atoning blood hath wash'd away!)
By mortal sufferings now no more oppress'd, Mount, sinless spirit, to thy destin'd rest! While I-reversed our nature's kindlier
They strewed thee, in thy narrow bed, With roses from thy own loved bowers: In melting anguish memory fled
Back to thy valued rural hours; And saw thee gentle gliding round, Where all to thee was Eden ground.
The God, whose presence met thee there, Was with thee in thy slow decays;
Pour forth a Father's sorrows on thy tomb? He answered to thy dying prayer,
ON THE DEATH OF H. K. WHITE.
UNHAPPY WHITE! while life was in its spring,
Whose life had been a hymn of praise : Thy God was nigh-thy Shepherd God, With comfort of his staff and rod.
I lay thee where the loved are laid: Rest-till their change and thine shall come;
And thy young Muse just waved her joyous Still voices whisper through the shade;
A light is glimmering round the tomb;
They died,-for Adam sinn'd ;-they live, The flesh rests here till Jesus come:
To claim his treasure from the tomb.
Is yet unborn who duly weighs an hour. "I've lost a day"-the prince who nobly cried,
Had been an emperor without his crown; Of Rome? say rather, lord of human race: He spoke, as if deputed by mankind. So should all speak: so reason speaks in all : From the soft whispers of that God in man, Why fly to folly, why to frenzy fly, For rescue from the blessing we possess ! Time the supreme;-Time is eternity; Pregnant with all eternity can give; Pregnant with all, that makes archangels smile.
Who murders Time, he crushes in the birth A power ethereal, only not adored.
TIME's glory is to calm contending Kings, To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light, To stamp the seal of time on aged things To wake the morn, and sentinel the night, To wrong the wronger till he render right; To ruinate proud buildings with his hours, And smear with dust their glittering golden towers!
To fill with worm-holes stately monuments To feed oblivion with decay of things,
SAD city of the silent place! Queen of the dreary wilderness, No voice of life, no passing sound Disturbs thy dreadful calm around; Save the wild desert-dweller's roar, Which tells the reign of man is o'er, Or winds that thro' thy portal sigh Upon their night-course flitting by!
The eternal ruins frowning stand, Like giant-spectres of the land; Or o'er the dead like mourners hang, Bent down by speechless sorrow's pang; What time, and space, and loneliness, All, o'er the sadden'd spirit press, Around in leaden slumbers lie The dread wastes of infinity, Where not a gentle hill doth swell, Where not a hermit shrub doth dwell; And where the song of wandering flood Ne'er voiced the fearful solitude.
How sweetly sad our pensive tears Flow o'er each broken arch that rears Its grey head through the mists of years! And where are now the dreams of Fame, The promise of a deathless name? Alas! the deep delusion's gone? And all, except the mouldering stone, The wreath that deck'd the victor's hair, Hath, like his glory, withered there: And Time's immortal garlands twine O'er desolation's mournful shrine, Like youth's embrace around decline.
O'er Beauty's dark and desert bed Ages of dreamless sleep have fled, And in the domes where once she smiled, The whispering weeds are waving wild;
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