The castle clock had tolled midnight:
With mattock and with spade,
And silent, by the torches' light,
His corse in earth we laid.
The coffin bore his name, that those
Of other years might know,
When earth its secrets should disclose,
Whose bones were laid below.
"Peace to the dead" no children sung,
Slow pacing up the nave,--
No prayers were read, no knell was rung,
As deep we dug his grave.
We only heard the winter's wind,
In many a sullen gust,
As, o'er the open grave inclined,
We murmured, "Dust to dust!"
MILD is the parting year, and sweet
The odour of the falling spray;
Life passes on more rudely fleet,
And balmless is its closing day.
I wait its close, I court its gloom,
But mourn that never must there fall
Or on my breast or on my tomb
The tear that would have soothed it all.
Four ducks on a pond,
A grass-bank beyond,
A blue sky of spring,
White clouds on the wing;
What a little thing
To remember for years-
To remember with tears!
Child of a day, thou knowest not
The tears that overflow thy urn,
The gushing eyes that read thy lot,
Nor, if thou knewest, couldst return!
And why the wish! the pure and blest
Watch like thy mother o'er thy sleep.
O peaceful night! O envied rest!
Thou wilt not ever see her weep.
WHISPERS of heavenly death, murmur’d I hear;
Labial gossip of night—sibilant chorals;
Footsteps gently ascending—mystical breezes, wafted soft and low;
Ripples of unseen rivers—tides of a current, flowing, forever flowing;
(Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?)
I see, just see, skyward, great cloud-masses;
Mournfully, slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing;
With, at times, a half-dimm’d, sadden’d, far-off star,
Appearing and disappearing.
(Some parturition, rather—some solemn, immortal birth:
On the frontiers, to eyes impenetrable,
Some Soul is passing over.)
While History's Muse the memorial was keeping
Of all that the dark hand of Destiny weaves,
Beside her the Genius of Erin stood weeping,
For hers was the story that blotted the leaves.
But oh! how the tear in her eyelids grew bright,
When, after whole pages of sorrow and shame,
She saw History write,
With a pencil of light
That illumed the whole volume, her Wellington's name.
"Yet still the last crown of thy toils is remaining,
The grandest, the purest, even thou hast yet known;
Though proud was thy task, other nations unchaining,
Far prouder to heal the deep wounds of thy own.
At the foot of that throne, for whose weal thou hast stood,
Go, plead for the land that first cradled thy fame,
The ocean said to me once,
"Look!
Yonder on the shore
Is a woman, weeping.
I have watched her.
Go you and tell her this --
Her lover I have laid
In cool green hall.
There is wealth of golden sand
And pillars, coral-red;
Two white fish stand guard at his bier.
"Tell her this
And more --
That the king of the seas
Weeps too, old, helpless man.
The bustling fates
Oh! breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade,
Where cold and unhonour'd his relics are laid:
Sad, silent, and dark, be the tears that we shed,
As the night-dew that falls on the grass o'er his head.
But the night-dew that falls, though in silence it weeps,
Shall brighten with verdure the grave where he sleeps;
And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,
Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.
In the morning of life, when its cares are unknown,
And its pleasures in all their new lustre begin,
When we live in a bright-beaming world of our own,
And the light that surrounds us is all from within;
Oh 'tis not, believe me, in that happy time
We can love, as in hours of less transport we may; --
Of our smiles, of our hopes, 'tis the gay sunny prime,
But affection is truest when these fade away.
When we see the first glory of youth pass us by,
Like a leaf on the stream that will never return,
When our cup, which had sparkled with pleasure so high,
First tastes of the other, the dark-flowing urn;
Then, then in the time when affection holds sway
With a depth and a tenderness joy never knew;
(Time -- the Ninth Century)
To-morrow, comrade, we
On the battle-plain must be,
There to conquer, or both lie low!
The morning star is up --
But there's wine still in the cup,
And we'll take another quaff, ere we go, boy, go;
We'll take another quaff, ere we go.
'Tis true, in manliest eyes
A passing tear will rise,
When we think of the friends we leave lone;
But what can wailing do?
See, our goblet's weeping too!
With its tears we'll chase away our own, boy, our own;
With its tears we'll chase away our own.
But daylight's stealing on;
Oh! think not my spirits are always as light,
And as free from a pang as they seem to you now,
Nor expect that the heart-beaming smile of to-night
Will return with to-morrow to brighten my brow.
No: -- life is a waste of wearisome hours,
Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns;
And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers,
Is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns.
But send round the bowl, and be happy awhile --
May we never meet worse, in our pilgrimage here,
Than the tear that enjoyment may gild with a smile,
And the smile that compassion can turn to a tear.
The thread of our life would be dark, Heaven knows
If it were not with friendship and love intertwined;
When Beauty and Beauty meet
All naked, fair to fair,
The earth is crying-sweet,
And scattering-bright the air,
Eddying, dizzying, closing round,
With soft and drunken laughter;
Veiling all that may befall
After -- after --
Where Beauty and Beauty met,
Earth's still a-tremble there,
And winds are scented yet,
And memory-soft the air,
Bosoming, folding glints of light,
And shreds of shadowy laughter;
Not the tears that fill the years
After -- after --