MY SISTER'S GRAVE. Vale, vale!-nos te, ordine quo natura permittet, sequemur ! THE noon-day sun is riding high, The mantle of his gorgeous glow Floats sleepily o'er all below; And heaven and earth are brightly gay Beneath the universal ray !— But not a wandering sunbeam falls 'Tis evening!—still I linger here, The place so pure,-I dare not weep! Where all is changing, save its theme; The feeling is a nameless one And read the tale I dare not breathe Brief record of a father's love, And hints, in language yet more brief, Around, the night-breeze sadly plays On high, right o'er my sister's grave! Lost spirit!-thine was not a breast Thou wert not made to bear the strife, To mingle with the dull and cold, Fell like a blight upon thy youth !— Thou shouldst have been, for thy distress, Less pure, and oh, more passionless! For sorrow's wasting mildew gave But all thy griefs, my girl, are o'er! Thy fair-blue eyes shall weep no more! Lies safe from every future storm !— F A CONTRAST. I SIT, in my lonely mood!— No smiling eyes are near, And there is not a sound in my solitude, Save the voice in my dreaming ear! The friends whom I loved, in light, Are seen through a twilight dim, Like fairies, beheld in a moonlight night, Or heard in a far-off hymn! The hopes of my youth are away, My home and its early dreams, I am far from the land where I used to play, A child, by its thousand streams! |