THE BURIAL-PLACE.

A FRAGMENT.

EREWHILE, on England's pleasant shores, our sires

Left not their churchyards unadorned with shades

Or blossoms; and indulgent to the strong
And natural dread of man's last home, the grave,
Its frost and silence-they disposed around,
To soothe the melancholy spirit that dwelt
Too sadly on life's close, the forms and hues
VOL. I.—3*

Of vegetable beauty. There the yew,
Green even amid the snows of winter, told
Of immortality, and gracefully

The willow, a perpetual mourner, drooped;
And there the gadding woodbine crept about,
And there the ancient ivy. From the spot
Where the sweet maiden, in her blossoming

years

Cut off, was laid with streaming eyes, and hands
That trembled as they placed her there, the rose
Sprung modest, on bowed stalk, and better
spoke

Her graces, than the proudest monument.
There children set about their playmate's grave
The pansy. On the infant's little bed,
Wet at its planting with maternal tears,
Emblem of early sweetness, early death,
Nestled the lowly primrose. Childless dames,
And maids that would not raise the reddened

Orphans, from whose young lids the light of joy
Fled early, silent lovers, who had given
All that they lived for to the arms of earth,
Came often, o'er the recent graves to strew
Their offerings, rue, and rosemary, and flowers.

The pilgrim bands who passed the sea to keep Their Sabbaths in the eye of God alone, In his wide temple of the wilderness,

Brought not these simple customs of the heart With them. It might be, while they laid their dead

By the vast solemn skirts of the old groves, And the fresh virgin soil poured forth strange flowers

About their graves; and the familiar shades
Of their own native isle and wonted blooms
And herbs were wanting, which the pious hand
Might plant or scatter there, these gentle rites

Passed out of use. Now they are scarcely

known,

And rarely in our borders may you meet
The tall larch, sighing in the burying-place,
Or willow, trailing low its boughs to hide
The gleaming marble. Naked rows of graves
And melancholy ranks of monuments

Are seen instead, where the coarse grass, between,

Shoots up its dull green spikes, and in the wind Hisses, and the neglected bramble nigh,

Offers its berries to the schoolboy's hand,

In vain-they grow too near the dead. Yet here,
Nature, rebuking the neglect of man,
Plants often, by the ancient mossy stone,
The brier rose, and upon the broken turf

That clothes the fresher grave, the strawberry

plant

Sprinkles its swell with blossoms, and lays forth Her ruddy, pouting fruit.

*

*

"BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN."

Он, deem not they are blest alone
Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep;
The Power who pities man, has shown
A blessing for the eyes that weep.

The light of smiles shall fill again
The lids that overflow with tears;

And weary hours of woe and pain

Are promises of happier years.