FullReads

The breath of Spring-time was on the plain,
And flowers were bursting to life again,
And birds were carolling full and free
On the leafy boughs of the forest tree,
When the sweetest voice in our tuneful throng
Faltered and failed from our choral song,
And we laid her down at her pure life’s close,
Peaceful and pale in her last repose.

The silvery Thames, as it glides along,
Murmurs anear her its old, sweet song;–
The tuneful robin sings still, as when
He warbled for her in the woodland glen;–
The star she loved, through the long, still night
Keeps his old, calm watch ‘mid the planets bright;–
Her favorite flowers are still as fair
As when twined ‘mid the braids of her raven hair;–
But the voice we missed in that far-off Spring
Is only heard where the angels sing!

And yet another,–I see him now,
With his manly bearing and noble brow–
Who turned away from our old church-choir,
To sing with the angels in worship higher
–As an alien bird ‘neath inclement skies
Foldeth its pinions to earth and dies,
So he, o’erwearied with life’s unrest,
Folded his mantle around his breast,
And, meekly bowing his weary head,
Went down to rest with the quiet dead,
And long were the hearts that had loved him lone
For the absent form and the missing tone!

There was still another. I yet behold
That form as I saw it in days of old,
As we stood in the calm of those Sabbath days,
And mingled our voices in hymns of praise.
–Ah! little we dreamed as we saw him there
In his proud, young beauty, with brow so fair,
And eye so lustrous, and tones so clear,
That the cruel spoiler was then so near;–
We dreamed it not, till we saw the light
Of his clear eyes growing so strangely bright.
And the flush of health on his cheek give place
To the deadly hectic’s burning trace!

There’s a tranquil isle amid Southern seas–
A fair isle, swept by no wintry breeze–
Where the wandering zephyr through long, bright hours
Gathers the perfume of orange bowers,
And roses droop in the fragrant bloom
Of their summer life o’er a nameless tomb,
–In that nameless tomb he is laid to rest,
And the dust of the stranger is on his breast,
And the breath of the South sweeps its viewless lyre
O’er another lost from our old church-choir

One dreamt of wealth on a distant shore,
And he wandered far to return no more,
For the deadly pestilence swept his path,
And the strong man drooped ‘neath its burning wrath,
And he sleeps alone in the shining dust
Whose golden promises mocked his trust!

By a lonely lake in the boundless West,
Another reposes in dreamless rest,–
And yet another–her pure life done–
Slumbers far off toward the setting sun,
And the youngest voice in our old church-choir
Is to-day attuned to a seraph’s lyre

That old church choir–I am standing lone
Where we stood together in days by gone,
But the tranquil air by no voice is stirred
Save the lonely call of a distant bird.
The grey, old church is no longer seen,
But the rank grass over its site grows green,
And, ‘mid the tomb-stones, with sighing breath,
The sad wind whispers of change and death

Hush! is it fancy?–or do I hear
A far-off melody, faint yet clear,
Of gentle voices, sweet tones of yore,
Tenderly borne from an unseen shore?
–Ah! loved, long parted, ye’re joined once more
In the Sabbath light of a changeless shore!
And there, with never a jarring note,
Your joyous anthems forever float
In sweet accord with the seraph strains
That sweep unchecked o’er celestial plains;
And I long to rejoin you in regions higher,
Loved ones, long lost from our old church-choir!