Death

RYNO, ALPIN.

RYNO

The wind and the rain are over:
calm is the noon of day. The
clouds are divided in heaven. Over
the green hills flies the inconstant sun.
Red through the stony vale comes
down the stream of the hill. Sweet are
thy murmurs, O stream! but more
sweet is the voice I hear. It is the voice
of Alpin the son of the song, mourning
for the dead. Bent is his head of age,
and red his tearful eye. Alpin, thou
son of the song, why alone on the silent
hill? why complainest thou, as a
blast in the wood; as a wave on the
lonely shore?

ALPIN.

My tears, O Ryno! are for the dead;
my voice, for the inhabitants of the
grave. Tall thou art on the hill; fair
among the sons of the plain. But thou
shalt fall like M...

“Who comes?” The sentry’s warning cry
Rings sharply on the evening air:
Who comes? The challenge: no reply,
Yet something motions there.

A woman, by those graceful folds;
A soldier, by that martial tread:
“Advance three paces. Halt! until
Thy name and rank be said.”

“My name? Her name, in ancient song,
Who fearless from Olympus came:
Look on me! Mortals know me best
In battle and in flame.”

“Enough! I know that clarion voice;
I know that gleaming eye and helm,
Those crimson lips, and in their dew
The best blood of the realm.

“The young, the brave, the good and wise,
Have fallen in thy curst embrace:
The juices of the grapes of wrath
Still stain thy guilty face.

“My brother lies in yonder field,
Face downwa...

'Tis an old deserted homestead
On the outskirts of the town,
Where the roof is all moss-covered,
And the walls are tumbling down;
But around that little cottage
Do my brightest mem'ries cling,
For 'twas there I spent the moments
Of my youth,--life's happy spring.

I remember how I used to
Swing upon the old front gate,
While the robin in the tree tops
Sung a night song to his mate;
And how later in the evening,
As the beaux were wont to do,
Mr. Perkins, in the parlor,
Sat and sparked my sister Sue.

There my mother--heaven bless her!--
Kissed or spanked as was our need,
And by smile or stroke implanted
In our hearts fair virtue's seed;
While my father, man of wisdom,
Lawyer keen, and farmer stout,
Argued long with neighb...

One of a hundred little rills--
Born in the hills,
Nourished with dews by the earth, and with tears by the sky,
Sang--"Who so mighty as I?
The farther I flow
The bigger I grow.
I, who was born but a little rill,
Now turn the big wheel of the mill,
Though the surly slave would rather stand still.
Old, and weed-hung, and grim,
I am not afraid of him;
For when I come running and dance on his toes,
With a creak and a groan the monster goes.
And turns faster and faster,
As he learns who is master,
Round and round,
Till the corn is ground,
And the miller smiles as he stands on the bank,
And knows he has me to thank.
Then when he swings the fine sacks of flour,
I feel my power;
But when the children enjoy their food,
I know I'm not only ...

    Dead art thou? No more dead than was the maid
    Over whose couch the saving God did stand--
    "She is not dead but sleepeth," said,
    And took her by the hand!

    Thee knowledge never from Life's pathway wiled,
    But following still where life's great father led,
    He turned, and taking up his child,
    Raised thee too from the dead,

    O living, thou hast passed thy second birth,
    Found all things new, and some things lovely strange;
    But thou wilt not forget the earth,
    Or in thy loving change!

The maple strews the embers of its leaves
    O'er the laggard swallows nestled 'neath the eaves;
And the moody cricket falters in his cry - Baby-bye! -
And the lid of night is falling o'er the sky - Baby-bye! -
    The lid of night is falling o'er the sky!

The rose is lying pallid, and the cup
Of the frosted calla-lily folded up;
And the breezes through the garden sob and sigh - Baby-bye! -
O'er the sleeping blooms of summer where they lie - Baby-bye! -
    O'er the sleeping blooms of summer where they lie!

Yet, Baby - O my Baby, for your sake
This heart of mine is ever wide awake,
And my love may never droop a drowsy eye - Baby-bye! -
Till your own are wet above me when I die - Baby-bye! -
    Till your own are wet above me when I die.

    He has gone to his grave in the strength of youth,
        While life shone bright before him;
    And we, who remember his worth and truth,
        Stand vainly grieving o'er him.

    He has gone to his grave; that manly heart
        No more with life is glowing;
    And the tears to our eyes unbidden start,
        Our sad hearts' overflowing.

    I gaze on his rooms as beneath I pace,
        And the past again comes o'er me,
    For I feel his grasp, and I see his face,
        And his voice has a welcome for me.

    I gaze on the river, and see once more
        His form in the race competing;
    And I hear the time of his well-known oar,
        And the shouts his triumph greeting.

    Flow on, cold river!    Our bitter grie...

    There is a quiet in my heart
    Like one who rests from days of pain.
    Outside, the sparrows on the roof
    Are chirping in the dripping rain.

    Rain in my heart; rain on the roof;
    And memory sleeps beneath the gray
    And windless sky and brings no dreams
    Of any well remembered day.

    I would not have the heavens fair,
    Nor golden clouds, nor breezes mild,
    But days like this, until my heart
    To loss of you is reconciled.

    I would not see you. Every hope
    To know you as you were has ranged.
    I, who am altered, would not find
    The face I loved so greatly changed.

I buckle to my slender side
The pistol and the scimitar,
And in my maiden flower and pride
Am come to share the tasks of war.
And yonder stands my fiery steed,
That paws the ground and neighs to go,
My charger of the Arab breed,
I took him from the routed foe.

My mirror is the mountain spring,
At which I dress my ruffled hair;
My dimmed and dusty arms I bring,
And wash away the blood-stain there.
Why should I guard from wind and sun
This cheek, whose virgin rose is fled?
It was for one, oh, only one,
I kept its bloom, and he is dead.

But they who slew him, unaware
Of coward murderers lurking nigh,
And left him to the fowls of air,
Are yet alive, and they must die.
They slew him, and my virgin years
Are vowed to Greece and v...

Hands off! thou tithe-fat plunderer! play
No trick of priestcraft here!
Back, puny lordling! darest thou lay
A hand on Elliott's bier?
Alive, your rank and pomp, as dust,
Beneath his feet he trod.

He knew the locust swarm that cursed
The harvest-fields of God.
On these pale lips, the smothered thought
Which England's millions feel,
A fierce and fearful splendor caught,
As from his forge the steel.
Strong-armed as Thor, a shower of fire
His smitten anvil flung;
God's curse, Earth's wrong, dumb Hunger's ire,
He gave them all a tongue!

Then let the poor man's horny hands
Bear up the mighty dead,
And labor's swart and stalwart bands
Behind as mourners tread.
Leave cant and craft their baptized bounds,
Leave rank its minster flo...

His heart's a burning censer, filled with spice
From fairer vales than those of Araby,
Breathing such prayers to heaven, that the nice
Discriminating ear of Deity
Can cull sweet praises from the rare perfume.
Man cannot know what starry lights illume
The soaring spirit of his brother man!
He judges harshly with his mind's eyes closed;
His loftiest understanding cannot scan
The heights where Poet-souls have oft reposed;
He cannot feel the chastened influence
Divine, that lights the Ideal atmosphere,
And never to his uninspirèd sense
Rolls the majestic hymn that inspirates the Seer.

We have worshipped two gods from our earliest youth,
Soul of my soul and heart of me!
Young forever and true as truth
The gods of Beauty and Poesy.

Sweet to us are their tyrannies,
Sweet their chains that have held us long,
For God's own self is a part of these,
Part of our gods of Beauty and Song.

What to us if the world revile!
What to us if its heart rejects!
It may scorn our gods, or curse with a smile,
The gods we worship, that it neglects:

Nothing to us is its blessing or curse;
Less than nothing its hate and wrong:
For Love smiles down through the universe,
Smiles on our gods of Beauty and Song.

We go our ways: and the dreams we dream
People our path and cheer us on;
And ever before is the golden gleam,
The star we...

When the horns wear thin
And the noise, like a garment outworn,
Falls from the night,
The tattered and shivering night,
That thinks she is gay;
When the patient silence comes back,
And retires,
And returns,
Rebuffed by a ribald song,
Wounded by vehement cries,
Fleeing again to the stars
Ashamed of her sister the night;
Oh, then they steal home,
The blinded, the pitiful ones
With their gew-gaws still in their hands,
Reeling with odorous breath
And thick, coarse words on their tongues.
They get them to bed, somehow,
And sleep the forgiving,
Comes thru the scattering tumult
And closes their eyes.
The stars sink down ashamed
And the dawn awakes,
Like a youth who steals from a brothel,
Dizzy and sick.

In Sensibility's lov'd praise
    I tune my trembling reed;
And seek to deck her shrine with bays,
    On which my heart must bleed!

No cold exemption from her pain
    I ever wish'd to know;
Cheer'd with her transport, I sustain
    Without complaint her woe.

Above whate'er content can give,
    Above the charm of ease,
The restless hopes, and fears that live
    With her, have power to please.

Where but for her, were Friendship's power
    To heal the wounded heart,
To shorten sorrow's ling'ring hour,
    And bid its gloom depart?

'Tis she that lights the melting eye
    With looks to anguish dear;
She knows the price of ev'ry sigh,
    The value of a tear.

She prompts the tender marks of love
   ...

What though while the wonders of nature exploring,
I cannot your light, mazy footsteps attend;
Nor listen to accents, that almost adoring,
Bless Cynthia's face, the enthusiast’s friend:

Yet over the steep, whence the mountain stream rushes,
With you, kindest friends, in idea I rove;
Mark the clear tumbling crystal, its passionate gushes,
Its spray that the wild flower kindly bedews.

Why linger you so, the wild labyrinth strolling?
Why breathless, unable your bliss to declare?
Ah! you list to the nightingale’s tender condoling,
Responsive to sylphs, in the moon beamy air.

'Tis morn, and the flowers with dew are yet drooping,
I see you are treading the verge of the sea:
And now! ah, I see it, you just now are stooping
To pick up the keep-sake intend...

Oft of the hiding Oread wast thou seen
At earliest morn, a tall imperial shape,
High-buskined, dew-dripped, and on close, chaste curls,
Long blackness of thick hair, the tipsy drops
Caught from the dipping sprays of under bosks,
Kissed of thy cheek and of thy shoulder brushed,
Thy rosy cheek as haughty Hera's fair,
Thy snow-soft shoulder luminous as light.

Oft did the shaggy hills and solitudes
Of Arethusa shout and ring and reel,
Reverberate and echo merrily
With the mad chiding of thy merry hounds,
Big mouthed and musical, that on the stag,
Or bristling wild-boar furious grew in quest,
And thou, as keen, fleet-footed and clean-limbed,
Thou, thou, O goddess, with thy quivered crew,
Most loveliest maids and fit to wed with gods,
Rushed, swinging on ...

Died at Hartford, September 23d, 1859.


The beautiful hath fled
    To join the spirit-train;
Earth interposed with strong array,
Love stretch'd his arms to bar her way,
    All,--all in vain.

There was a bridal hope
    Before her crown'd with flowers;
The orange blossoms took the hue
With which the cypress dank with dew
    Darkeneth our bowers.

Affections strong and warm
    Sprang round her gentle way,
Young Childhood, with a moisten'd eye,
And Friendship's tenderest sympathy
    Watch'd her decay.

Disease around her couch
    Long held a tyrant sway,
Till vanished from her cheek, the rose,
And the fair flesh like vernal snows
    Wasted away.

Yet the dark Angel's touch
    Dissolv'd that dir...

Died at Hartford, May 12th, 1860.


Gone, pure in heart! unto thy fitting home,
Where nought of ill can follow. O'er thy life
There swept no stain, and o'er its placid close
No shadow.
                    As for us, who saw thee move
From childhood onward, loving and serene,
To every duty faithful, we who feel
The bias toward self too often make
Our course unequal, or beset with thorns,
Give thanks to Him, the Giver of all good,
For what thou wert, but most for what thou art.

                *    *    *    *    *

Thy meek and reverent nature cheer'd the heart
Of hoary Age even in thine early bloom,
And with sweet tenderness of filial care,
And perfect sympathy, thy shielding arm
Pillow'd a Mother's head, till life went out.
We y...