AUTUMN.

The autumn winds are moaning round
  And through the branches sighing,
And autumn leaves upon the ground
  All seared and dead are lying.

The summer flowers have ceased to bloom
  For autumn frosts have blighted,
And laid them in a cheerless tomb
  By summer sun unlighted.

Thus all our “fondest hopes decay”
  Beneath the chill of sorrow,
The joys that brightest seem to-day
  Are withered by the morrow.

But there are flowers that bloom enshrin’d
  In hearts by love united,
Unscathed by the autumn wind,
  By autumn frost unblighted.

And there are hearts that ever thrill
  With friendship warm and glowing,
And joys unseared by sorrow’s chill
  With hallowed truth o’erflowing.

MARY’S GRAVE.

In a quiet country churchyard
  From the city far away,
Where no marble stands in mockery
  Above the mould’ring clay;
Where rears no sculptured monument—­
  There grass and flowers wave
’Round a spot where mem’ry lingers—­
  My once-loved Mary’s grave.

They laid her down to slumber
  In this lonely quiet spot,
They raised no stone above her,
  No epitaph they wrote;
They pressed the fresh mould o’er her
  As earth to earth they gave—­
Their hearts with anguish bursting,
  They turned from Mary’s grave.

She knew not much of grief or care
  Ere yet by Death’s cold hand,
Her soul was snatched from earth away
  To join the spirit band: 
Her mild blue eye hath lost its gleam,
  No more her sufferings crave
The hand of pity, but the tear
  Falls oft o’er Mary’s grave.

I too would pay my tribute there,
  I who have loved her well. 
And drop one silent, sorrowing tear
  This storm of grief to quell;
’Tis all the hope I dare indulge,
  ’Tis all the boon I crave,
To pay the tribute of a tear,
  Loved Mary, o’er thy grave.

TO ANSELMO.

    Anselmo was the nom de plume of David Scott, of James.

I know thee not, and yet I fain
  Would call thee brother, friend;
I know that friendship, virtue, truth,
  All in thy nature blend.

I know by thee the formal bow,
  The half deceitful smile
Are valued not; they ill become
  The man that’s free from guile.

I know thee not, and yet my breast
  Thrills ever at thy song,
And bleeds to know, that thou hast felt
  The weight of “woe and wrong.”

’Tis said the soul with care opprest
  Grows patient ’neath the weight,
And after years can bear it well
  E’en though the load be great.

And, that the heart oft stung by grief
  Is senseless to the pain,
And bleeding bares it to the barb,
  To bid it strike again.