That night upon the woods came down a furious hurricane,
With howl of winds and roar of streams, and beating of the rain;
The mighty thunder broke and drowned the noises in its crash;
The old trees seemed to fight like fiends beneath the lightning-flash.

Next day, within a mossy glen, ’mid mouldering trunks were found
The fragments of a human form upon the bloody ground;
White bones from which the flesh was torn, and locks of glossy hair;
They laid them in the place of graves, yet wist not whose they were.

And whether famished evening wolves had mangled Albert so,
Or that strange dame so gay and fair were some mysterious foe,
Or whether to that forest lodge, beyond the mountains blue,
He went to dwell with her, the friends who mourned him never knew.

Life. deg.

Oh Life!  I breathe thee in the breeze,
  I feel thee bounding in my veins,
I see thee in these stretching trees,
  These flowers, this still rock’s mossy stains.

This stream of odours flowing by
  From clover-field and clumps of pine,
This music, thrilling all the sky,
  From all the morning birds, are thine.

Thou fill’st with joy this little one,
  That leaps and shouts beside me here,
Where Isar’s clay-white rivulets run
  Through the dark woods like frighted deer.

Ah! must thy mighty breath, that wakes
  Insect and bird, and flower and tree,
From the low trodden dust, and makes
  Their daily gladness, pass from me—­

Pass, pulse by pulse, till o’er the ground
  These limbs, now strong, shall creep with pain,
And this fair world of sight and sound
  Seem fading into night again?

The things, oh life! thou quickenest, all
  Strive upwards toward the broad bright sky,
Upward and outward, and they fall
  Back to earth’s bosom when they die.

All that have borne the touch of death,
  All that shall live, lie mingled there,
Beneath that veil of bloom and breath,
  That living zone ’twixt earth and air.

There lies my chamber dark and still,
  The atoms trampled by my feet,
There wait, to take the place I fill
  In the sweet air and sunshine sweet.

Well, I have had my turn, have been
  Raised from the darkness of the clod,
And for a glorious moment seen
  The brightness of the skirts of God;

And knew the light within my breast,
  Though wavering oftentimes and dim,
The power, the will, that never rest,
  And cannot die, were all from him.

Dear child!  I know that thou wilt grieve
  To see me taken from thy love,
Wilt seek my grave at Sabbath eve,
  And weep, and scatter flowers above.

Thy little heart will soon be healed,
  And being shall be bliss, till thou
To younger forms of life must yield
  The place thou fill’st with beauty now.