But promised, duly every year, to visit the sad child,
As soon as by our forest-side the first pale primrose smiled.
"While they two were embracing, the Palace it was gone,
And I and my dear sister stood by the Great Burial-stone;
While both of us our river saw in twilight glimmering by,
And knew at once the dark Cairngorm in his own silent sky."
The Child hath long been speaking to one who may not hear,
For a deadly Joy came suddenly upon a deadly Fear,
And though the Mother fell not down, she lay on Mhairi's breast,
And her face was white as that of one whose soul has gone to rest.
She sits beneath the Elder-shade in that long mortal swoon,
And piteously on her wan cheek looks down the gentle Moon;
And when her senses are restored, whom sees she at her side,
But Her believed in childhood to have wandered off and died!
In these small hands, so lily-white, is water from the spring,
And a grateful coolness drops from it as from an angel's wing,
And to her Mother's pale lips her rosy lips are laid,
While these long soft eyelashes drop tears on her hoary head.
She stirs not in her Child's embrace, but yields her old grey hairs
Unto the heavenly dew of tears, the heavenly breath of prayers—
No voice hath she to bless her child, till that strong fit go by,
But gazeth on the long lost face, and then upon the sky.
The Sabbath-morn was beautiful- and the long Sabbath-day-
The Evening-star rose beautiful when daylight died away;
Morn, day, and twilight, this lone Glen flowed over with delight,
But the fulness of all mortal Joy hath blessed the Sabbath-night.
How sweet and solemn, all alone,
With reverend steps, from stone to stone
In a small village churchyard lying,
O'er intervening flowers to move!
And as we read the names unknown
Of young and old to judgment gone,
And hear in the calm air above
Time onwards softly flying,
To meditate, in Christian love,
Upon the dead and dying!
Across the silence seem to go
With dreamlike motion, wavering, slow,
And shrouded in their folds of snow,
The friends we loved long long ago!
Gliding across the sad retreat,
How beautiful their phantom feet!
What tenderness is in their eyes,
Turned where the poor survivor lies
'Mid monitory sanctities!
What years of vanished joy are fanned
From one uplifting of that band
In its white stillness! when the Shade
Doth glimmeringly in sunshine fade
From our embrace, how dim appears
This world's life through a mist of tears!
Vain hopes! blind sorrows! needless fears!
Such is the scene around me now:
A little Churchyard on the brow
Of a green pastoral hill;
Its sylvan village sleeps below,
And faintly here is heard the flow
Of Woodburn's summer rill;
A place where all things mournful meet,
And yet the sweetest of the sweet,
The stillest of the still!
With what a pensive beauty fall
Across the mossy mouldering wall
That rose-tree's clustered arches! See
The robin-redbreast warily,
Bright through the blossoms, leaves his nest :
Sweet ingrate! through the winter blest
At the firesides of men-but shy
Through all the sunny summer hours,
He hides himself among the flowers
In his own wild festivity.
What lulling sound, and shadow cool
Hangs half the darkened churchyard o'er
From thy green depths so beautiful,
Thou gorgeous sycamore!
Oft hath the holy wine and bread
Been blest beneath thy murmuring tent,
Where many a bright and hoary head
Bowed at that awful sacrament.
Now all beneath the turf are laid
On which they sat, and sang, and prayed.
Above that consecrated tree
Ascends the tapering spire that seems
To lift the soul up silently
To heaven with all its dreams,
While in the belfry, deep and low,
From his heaved bosom's purple gleams
The dove's continuous murmurs flow,
A dirge-like song, half-bliss, half-woe,
The voice so lonely seems!
THE Courtly hall is gleaming bright
With fashion's graceful throng---
All hearts are chained in still delight,
For like the heaven-borne voice of night
Breathes Handel's sacred song.
Nor on my spirit melts in vain
The deep-the wild-the mournful strain
That fills the echoing hall
(Though many a callous soul be there) With sighs, and sobs, and cherished painWhile on a face, as Seraph's fair,
Mine eyes in sadness fall.
Not those the tears that smiling flow
As fancied sorrow bleeds,
Like dew upon the rose's glow;
That Lady 'mid the glittering show
Is clothed in widow's weeds.
She sits in reverie profound,
And drinks and lives upon the sound,
As if she ne'er would wake!
Her closed eyes cannot hold the tears
That tell what dreams her soul have bound
In memory they of other years
For a dead husband's sake.
Methinks her inmost soul lies spread
Before my tearful sight—
A garden whose best flowers are dead,
A sky still fair (though darkenèd)
With hues of lingering light.
I see the varying feelings chase
Each other o'er her pallid face,
From shade to deepest gloom.
She thinks on living objects dear,
And pleasure lends a cheerful grace ;
But oh! that look so dim and drear,
-Her heart is in the tomb.
Rivalling the tender crescent Moon
The Star of evening shines-
A warm, still, balmy night of June,
Low-murmuring with a fitful tune
From yonder grove of pines.
In the silence of that starry sky,
Exchanging vows of constancy,
Two happy lovers stray.
-To her how sad and strange! to know,
In darkness while the phantoms fade,
That one a widowed wretch is now,
The other in the clay.
A wilder gleam disturbs her eye.
Oh! hush the deep'ning strain!
And must the youthful Warrior die?
A gorgeous funeral passes by,
The dead-march stuns her brain.
The singing voice she hears no more,
Across his grave the thunders roar !
How weeps yon gallant band
O'er him their valour could not save!
For the bayonet is red with gore,
And he, the beautiful and brave,
Now sleeps in Egypt's sand.
But far away in cloud and mist
The ghastly vision swims.
-Unto that dying cadence list!
She thinks the voices of the blest
Now chant their evening hymns.
O for a dove's unwearied wing,
That she might fly where angels sing
Around the judgment-seat;
That Spirit pure to kiss again,
And smile at earthly sorrowing!
Washed free from every mortal stain,
At Jesus' blessèd feet.
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