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| A MOURNFUL 1 tone the night-air brings, about this lonely tomb, | |
| Like thoughts of fair and faded things amid life’s changeful gloom; | |
| Deep shadows of the past are here!—and fancy wanders back, | |
| When joy woke in this mouldering breast, now pass’d from life’s worn track: | |
| When hope made glad his spirit here, as the pure summer-rain | 5 |
| Pours its sweet influence on the earth, with all her flowery train; | |
| While buds were tossing in the breeze beneath a deep blue sky— | |
| And pleasure’s chant was in his ear, ere he had gone to die! | |
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| Youth, too, was his—its morning hour—its sunlight for his brow— | |
| Its phantoms shone, for him to chase, in giddy round, but now; | 10 |
| Perchance the glee of his young heart—the glancing of his eye | |
| Hath been upon another shore, beneath a brighter sky:— | |
| The night-tones have no tales to tell—no history to unfold— | |
| The tall, sere grass, that waves alone, in sadness o’er his mould— | |
| These speak not—deep in dreamless rest, the peaceful sleeper lies; | 15 |
| There is no pang to rend his heart,—no grief to dim his eyes! | |
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| Perchance, in halcyon hours of Youth, a transient dream of love | |
| Came to his brain while earth was joy, and heaven was light above;— | |
| When his soul was fill’d with gladsome thought—and in idolatry | |
| He bow’d him to that holy shrine, which in our youth we see; | 20 |
| A star above life’s troubled scene—a gleam upon its wave— | |
| A ray, whose light is soon eclipsed, in the darkness of the grave; | |
| A song, which like the mirthful tone of wild birds on the wing, | |
| Dies when the dewy even-tide enshrouds a sky of spring! | |
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| I know but this—Death’s shadows dwell upon his deep-seal’d eye; | 25 |
| Vainly earth laughs in joy for him, or the blue summer-sky— | |
| The gales may tell where flowers repose, or where the young buds swell; | |
| Their soft chant may not enter here, within this voiceless cell— | |
| Flowers, dreams, and grief, alike are past—and why should man reply, | |
| When life is but a wilderness whose promise soon may die— | 30 |
| ’T is but a home, where all must sleep—change, which to all must come— | |
| A curtain, which o’er ALL must spread its deep, o’ershadowing gloom! | |
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| The wail of the expiring year is in the deep brown woods— | |
| The leaf is borne upon the stream, in its dark solitudes:— | |
| The clouds are on the chasten’d hills—the floods are wild and high— | 35 |
| The mournful pall is lingering, where faded blossoms lie:— | |
| Then here should monitory thoughts be treasured in the breast | |
| That life is but a changeful hour—and Death, a holy rest, | |
| Where grief’s loud wail or bursting tears ne’er to its stillness come; | |
| But silence reigns within its hall, wrapp’d in its shrouded home! | 40 |
