LADY LINDSAY.

JEUNE FILLE ET JEUNE FLEUR.

The bier descends, the spotless roses too,
  The father’s tribute in his saddest hour: 
O Earth! that bore them both, thou hast thy due,—­
        The fair young girl and flower.

Give them not back unto a world again,
  Where mourning, grief, and agony have power,—­
Where winds destroy, and suns malignant reign,—­
        That fair young girl and flower.

Lightly thou sleepest, young Eliza, now,
  Nor fear’st the burning heat, nor chilling shower;
They both have perished in their morning glow,—­
        The fair young girl and flower.

But he, thy sire, whose furrowed brow is pale,
  Bends, lost in sorrow, o’er thy funeral bower,
And Time the old oak’s roots doth now assail,
        O fair young girl and flower!

From the French of FRANCOIS AUGUSTE, VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND.

THE DEATH-BED.

We watched her breathing through the night,
  Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
  Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seemed to speak,
  So slowly moved about,
As we had lent her half our powers
  To eke her living out.

Our very hopes belied our fears,
  Our fears our hopes belied—­
We thought her dying when she slept,
  And sleeping when she died.

For when the morn came, dim and sad,
  And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed—­she had
  Another morn than ours.

THOMAS HOOD.

A DEATH-BED.

Her suffering ended with the day;
  Yet lived she at its close,
And breathed the long, long night away,
  In statue-like repose.

But when the sun, in all his state,
  Illumed the eastern skies,
She passed through glory’s morning-gate,
   And walked in Paradise!

JAMES ALDRICH.

REQUIESCAT.

Strew on her roses, roses,
   And never a spray of yew. 
In quiet she reposes: 
   Ah! would that I did too.

Her mirth the world required: 
   She bathed it in smiles of glee. 
But her heart was tired, tired,
   And now they let her be.

Her life was turning, turning,
   In mazes of heat and sound. 
But for peace her soul was yearning,
   And now peace laps her round.

Her cabined, ample Spirit,
   It fluttered and failed for breath. 
To-night it doth inherit
   The vasty Hall of Death.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

“THE UNILLUMINED VERGE.”

     TO A FRIEND DYING.

They tell you that Death’s at the turn of the road,
   That under the shade of a cypress you’ll find him,
And, struggling on wearily, lashed by the goad
   Of pain, you will enter the black mist behind him.