Death

Here's never a bough to be tossed in the breeze,
For it’s long since the forest was green;
And round all the trunks of the naked white trees
The marks of the death-ring are seen.
The solemn-faced bear, who had looked on the blacks
From his home with the ’possum and cat,
Blinked anxiously down when the death-dealing axe
Was ring-barking Skeleton Flat.

And, strange to be seen in the evergreen south,
The gums for ten summers have stood,
And dried in the terrible furnace of drouth,
Till harder than flint is the wood.
Now tall grows the grass at the roots of the trees,
But a beautiful forest it cost;
And the heart of the splitter is sad when he sees
And thinks of the timber that’s lost.

Here flies, through a sky that is glazed, the black crow,
And ...

The sun is lord and god, sublime, serene,
And sovereign on the mountains: earth and air
Lie prone in passion, blind with bliss unseen
By force of sight and might of rapture, fair
As dreams that die and know not what they were.
The lawns, the gorges, and the peaks, are one
Glad glory, thrilled with sense of unison
In strong compulsive silence of the sun.
Flowers dense and keen as midnight stars aflame
And living things of light like flames in flower
That glance and flash as though no hand might tame
Lightnings whose life outshone their stormlit hour
And played and laughed on earth, with all their power
Gone, and with all their joy of life made long
And harmless as the lightning life of song,
Shine sweet like stars when darkness feels them strong.
The deep mild ...

The day is done, and the darkness
    Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
    From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
    Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
    That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
    That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
    As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
    Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
    And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
    Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
    Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
    The...

Peace to the dead! The forest weaves,
Around your couch, its shroud of leaves;
While shadows dim and silence deep,
Bespeak the quiet of your sleep.

Rest, pilgrim, here! Your journey o'er,
Life's weary cares ye heed no more;
Time's sun has set, in yonder west
Your work is done rest, Pilgrim, rest!

Rest till the morning hour; wait
Here, at Eternity's dread gate,
Safe in the keeping of the sod,
And the sure promises of God.

Dark is your home yet round the tomb,
Tokens of hope sweet flowerets bloom;
And cherished memories, soft and dear,
Blest as their fragrance, linger here!

We speak, yet ye are dumb! How dread
This deep, stern silence of the Dead!
The whispers of the Grave, severe,
The listening Soul alone can hear!

I.

To-night he sees their star burn, dewy-bright,
Deep in the pansy, eve hath made for it,
Low in the west; a placid purple lit
At its far edge with warm auroral light:
Love's planet hangs above a cedared height;
And there in shadow, like gold music writ
Of dusk's dark fingers, scale-like fire-flies flit
Now up, now down the balmy bars of night.
How different from that eve a year ago!
Which was a stormy flower in the hair
Of dolorous day, whose sombre eyes looked, blurred,
Into night's sibyl face, and saw the woe
Of parting near, and imaged a despair,
As now a hope caught from a homing word.


II.

She came unto him, as the springtime does
Unto the land where all lies dead and cold,
Until her rosary of days is told
And beaut...

For I must sing of all I feel and know,
Waiting with Memnon passive near the palms,
Until the heavenly light doth dawn and grow
And thrill my silence into mystic psalms;
From unknown realms the wind streams sad or gay,
The trees give voice responsive to its sway.

For I must sing: of mountains, deserts, seas,
Of rivers ever flowing, ever flowing;
Of beasts and birds, of grass and flowers and trees
Forever fading and forever growing;
Of calm and storm, of night and eve and noon,
Of boundless space, and sun and stars and moon;

And of the secret sympathies that bind
All beings to their wondrous dwelling-place;
And of the perfect Unity enshrined
In omnipresence throughout time and space,
Alike informing with its full control
The dust, the stars, th...

How sweetly on the wood-girt town
The mellow light of sunset shone!
Each small, bright lake, whose waters still
Mirror the forest and the hill,
Reflected from its waveless breast
The beauty of a cloudless west,
Glorious as if a glimpse were given
Within the western gates of heaven,
Left, by the spirit of the star
Of sunset's holy hour, ajar!

Beside the river's tranquil flood
The dark and low-walled dwellings stood,
Where many a rood of open land
Stretched up and down on either hand,
With corn-leaves waving freshly green
The thick and blackened stumps between.
Behind, unbroken, deep and dread,
The wild, untravelled forest spread,
Back to those mountains, white and cold,
Of which the Indian trapper told,
Upon whose summits never yet

The Text is that communicated to the Folklore Record (vol. i. p. 60) by Miss Charlotte Latham, as it was written down from recitation by a girl in Sussex (1868).


The Story is so simple, and so reminiscent of other ballads, that we must suppose this version to be but a fragment of some forgotten ballad. Its chief interest lies in the setting forth of a common popular belief, namely, that excessive grief for the dead 'will not let them sleep.' Cp. Tibullus, Lib. 1. Eleg. 1, lines 67, 68:--

    'Tu Manes ne laede meos: sed parce solutis
        Crinibus, et teneris, Delia, parce genis.'

The same belief is recorded in Germany, Scandinavia, India, Persia, and ancient Greece, as well as in England and Scotland (see Sir Walter Scott, Red-gauntlet, letter xi., note 2).

There is ...

Why do you sit in the churchyard weeping?
Why do you cling to the dear old graves,
When the dim, drear mists of the dusk are creeping
Out of the marshes in wan, white waves?
Darling, I know you're a slave to sorrow;
Dearie, I know that the world is cruel;
But you'll be in bed with a cold to-morrow,
I shall be running upstairs with gruel.

Why do you weep on a tombstone, Mammy,
Sobbing alone in the drizzling sleet,
When the chill mists rise, and the wind strikes clammy?
Think of your bones, and your poor old feet!
Darling, I know that you feel lugubrious;
Dearie, I know you must work this off;
But graveyards are not, as a rule, salubrious,
Whence the expression, a 'churchyard cough.'

[The Old Lady explains her eccentric...