Can grief excuse indifference
      With groan or tear? 
Can deep remorse and penitence,
Or anguish mitigate offense
      With pang sincere?

Ah!  Tears can ne’er unlock the past
      Which opens not;
And what is done is welded fast,
Through all eternity to last,
      Nor change one jot.

Whate’er may lie beyond the veil
      I calmly face,
And sink, as grievous tears bewail
My faults and imperfections frail,
      In death’s embrace.

And as I think the matter o’er,
      Pensive and sad,
While its shortcomings I deplore,
The fruits which my existence bore
      Were not all bad.

From all which can rejoice or grieve
      I shortly go,
And now, in life’s declining eve
I wonder, hope, try to believe—­
      Soon I shall know!

My spirit flees, as night enwraps,
      To its reward;
The earth recedes, I feel it lapse;
I sink as dissolution snaps
      The silver cord.

O, Thou whose presence I can feel
      Each hour I live,
While passing through death’s stern ordeal,
Wilt Thou Thy mercy still reveal,
      And still forgive?

Deprive This Strange and Complex World.

Deprive this strange and complex world
  Of all the charms of art;
Deprive it of those sweeter joys
  Which music doth impart;
But oh, preserve that smile, which tells
  The secret of the heart!

The world may lose its massive piles
  Which point their spires above;
May spare the tuneful nightingale
  And gently cooing dove;
But woe betide it, if it lose
  The sentiment of love!

The Legend of St. Regimund.

St. Regimund, e’er he became a saint,
Was much imbued with vulgar earthly taint;
E’er he renounced the honors of a Knight
And doffed his coat of mail and helmet bright,
For sober cassock and monastic hood,
Leaving the castle for the cloister rude,
And changed the banquet’s sumptuous repast
For frugal crusts and the ascetic fast;
Forsook his charger and equipments for
The crucifix and sacerdotal war;
While yet with valiant sword and blazoned shield
He braved the dangers of the martial field,
Or sought the antlered trophies of the chase
In forest and sequestered hunting place;
Or, tiring of the hunt’s exciting sport,
Enjoyed the idle pleasures of the court,
Whiling away the time with games of chance,
With music and the more voluptuous dance,
The hollow paths of vanity pursued,
Laughed, jested, swore, drank, danced, and even wooed;
No tongue more prone to questionable wit,
Nor chaste, when time and place demanded it;
His basso voice, both voluble and strong,
Excelled in wassail mirth and ribald song;
He swore with oaths most impious and unblest;
Ate much, drank more, on these lines did his best;
Caroused by day, caroused by candle light,
In fact behaved like any other knight.