From the French of CHARLES, DUKE OF ORLEANS. 
Translation of HENRY FRANCIS CARY.

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK.

Break, break, break,
  On thy cold gray stones, O sea! 
And I would that my tongue could utter
  The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman’s boy
  That he shouts with his sister at play! 
O well for the sailor lad
  That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on,
  To the haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
  And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,
  At the foot of thy crags, O sea! 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
  Will never come back to me.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

LAVENDER.

How prone we are to hide and hoard
Each little treasure time has stored,
  To tell of happy hours! 
We lay aside with tender care
A tattered book, a lock of hair,
  A bunch of faded flowers.

When death has led with silent hand
Our darlings to the “Silent Land,”
  Awhile we sit bereft;
But time goes on; anon we rise,
Our dead are buried from our eyes,
  We gather what is left.

The books they loved, the songs they sang,
The little flute whose music rang
  So cheerily of old;
The pictures we had watched them paint,
The last plucked flower, with odor faint,
  That fell from fingers cold.

We smooth and fold with reverent care
The robes they living used to wear;
  And painful pulses stir
As o’er the relics of our dead,
With bitter rain of tears, we spread
  Pale purple lavender.

And when we come in after years,
With only tender April tears
  On cheeks once white with care,
To look on treasures put away
Despairing on that far-off day,
  A subtile scent is there.

Dew-wet and fresh we gather them,
These fragrant flowers; now every stem
  Is bare of all its bloom: 
Tear-wet and sweet we strewed them here
To lend our relics, sacred, dear,
  Their beautiful perfume.

The scent abides on book and lute,
On curl and flower, and with its mute
  But eloquent appeal
  It wins from us a deeper sob
For our lost dead, a sharper throb
Than we are wont to feel.

It whispers of the “long ago;”
Its love, its loss, its aching woe,
  And buried sorrows stir;
And tears like those we shed of old
Roll down our cheeks as we behold
  Our faded lavender.

ANONYMOUS.

WHAT OF THE DARKNESS?

     TO THE HAPPY DEAD PEOPLE.

What of the darkness?  Is it very fair? 
Are there great calms? and find we silence there? 
Like soft-shut lilies, all your faces glow
With some strange peace our faces never know,
With some strange faith our faces never dare,—­
Dwells it in Darkness?  Do you find it there?