Since Earth received its earliest dead,
  Man’s sorrow has been vain;
Though useless were the tears they shed,
  Still I will weep again.

The breast, that may its pangs conceal,
  Is not from torture freed,
For still the wound, that will not heal,
  Alas! must inly bleed.

Vain Sophist! ask no reason why
  The love that cannot save,
Will hover with despairing cry
  Around the dear ones grave.

Mine is not frenzy’s sudden gust,
  The passion of an hour,
Which sprinkles o’er beloved dust
  Its brief though burning shower.

Then bid not me my tears to check,
  The effort would but fail,
The face, I hid at custom’s beck,
  Would weep behind its veil.

The tree its blighted trunk will rear,
  With sap and verdure gone,
And hearts may break, yet many a year
  All brokenly live on.

Earth has no terror like the tomb
  Which hides my darling’s head,
Yet seeking her amid its gloom,
  I grope among the dead.

And oh! could love restore that form
  To its recovered grace,
How soon would it again grow warm
  Within my wild embrace.

DEATH OF HENRY CLAY, JR.

KILLED IN ONE OF THE BATTLES OF THE MEXICAN WAR.

Fierce as the sword upon his thigh,
Doth gleam the panting soldier’s eye,
But nerveless hangs the arm that swayed
So proudly that terrific blade. 
The feeble bosom scarce can give
A throb to show he yet doth live,
And in his eye the light which glows,
Is but the stare, that death bestows. 
The filmy veins that circling thread
The cooling balls are turning red;
And every pang that racks him now,
Starts the cold sweat up to his brow,
But yet his smile not even death
Could from his boyish face unwreath,
Or in convulsive writhing show
The pangs, that wring the brain below.

To the far fight he seeks to gaze,
Where battling arms yet madly blaze,
And with a gush of manly pride,
Weeps as his banner is descried
Above the piling smoke-clouds borne,
Like the first dubious streaks of morn
That o’er the mountains misty height
Will kindle in a lovely sight.

“A foreign soil my blood doth stain,
And the few drops that yet remain
Add but still longer to my pain. 
Land of my birth! thy hills no more
May these fast glazing eyes explore,
Yet oh! may not my body rest
Beneath that sod my heart loves best? 
My father—­home!  Joys most adored
Dwell in that simple English word—­
Go, comrades!  Till your field is won
Forget me—­father, I die thy son.”

Hark the wild cry rolls on his ear! 
The foe approach who hovered near;
Rings the harsh clang of bick’ring steel
In blows his arm no more may deal.