620.

I

JOHN KEBLE

Burial of the Dead

1792-1866

THOUGHT to meet no more, so dreary seem'd
Death's interposing veil, and thou so pure,

Thy place in Paradise

Beyond where I could soar;

Friend of this worthless heart! but happier thoughts
Spring like unbidden violets from the sod,

Where patiently thou tak'st
Thy sweet and sure repose.

The shadows fall more soothing: the soft air
Is full of cheering whispers like thine own;
While Memory, by thy grave,

Lives o'er thy funeral day;

The deep knell dying down, the mourners' pause,
Waiting their Saviour's welcome at the gate.-
Sure with the words of Heaven
Thy spirit met us there,

And sought with us along th' accustom'd way
The hallow'd porch, and entering in, beheld
The pageant of sad joy

So dear to Faith and Hope.

O! hadst thou brought a strain from Paradise
To cheer us, happy soul, thou hadst not touch'd
The sacred springs of grief

More tenderly and true,

Than those deep-warbled anthems, high and low,
Low as the grave, high as th' Eternal Throne,
Guiding through light and gloom
Our mourning fancies wild,

Till gently, like soft golden clouds at eve
Around the western twilight, all subside
Into a placid faith,

That even with beaming eye

Counts thy sad honours, coffin, bier, and pall;
So many relics of a frail love lost,
So many tokens dear

Of endless love begun.

Listen! it is no dream: th' Apostles' trump
Gives earnest of th' Archangel's ;-calmly now,
Our hearts yet beating high
To that victorious lay

(Most like a warrior's, to the martial dirge Of a true comrade), in the grave we trust Our treasure for awhile:

And if a tear steal down,

If human anguish o'er the shaded brow
Pass shuddering, when the handful of pure earth
Touches the coffin-lid;

If at our brother's name,

6

Once and again the thought, for ever gone,' Come o'er us like a cloud; yet, gentle spright, Thou turnest not away,

Thou know'st us calm at heart.

One look, and we have seen our last of thee,
Till we too sleep and our long sleep be o'er.
O cleanse us, ere we view

That countenance pure again,

Thou, who canst change the heart, and raise the dead!
As Thou art by to soothe our parting hour,
Be ready when we meet,

With Thy dear pardoning words.

JOHN CLARE

621. Written in Northampton County

I

Asylum

1793-1864

AM! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me like a memory lost.

I am the self-consumer of my woes;

They rise and vanish, an oblivious host, Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.

And yet I am- -I live-though I am toss'd

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that's dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange-nay, they are stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod—
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept-
There to abide with my Creator, God,

And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,— The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.

623.

FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS

CA

Dirge

ALM on the bosom of thy God,
Fair spirit, rest thee now!

E'en while with ours thy footsteps trod,

His seal was on thy brow.

Dust, to its narrow house beneath!

Soul, to its place on high!

They that have seen thy look in death
No more may fear to die.

1793-1835

The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips :—
To give maiden blushes

To the white rose bushes?

Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips?

O Sorrow!

Why dost borrow

The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?—
To give the glow-worm light?

Or, on a moonless night,

To tinge, on siren shores, the salt sea-spry?

623. sea-spry] sea-spray.

O Sorrow!

Why dost borrow

The mellow ditties from a mourning tongue ?-
To give at evening pale

Unto the nightingale,

That thou mayst listen the cold dews among?

O Sorrow!

Why dost borrow

Heart's lightness from the merriment of May ?-
A lover would not tread

A cowslip on the head,

Though he should dance from eve till peep of day— Nor any drooping flower

Held sacred for thy bower,

Wherever he may sport himself and play.

To Sorrow

I bade good morrow,

And thought to leave her far

But cheerly, cheerly,

She loves me dearly;

away behind

;

She is so constant to me, and so kind:
I would deceive her,

And so leave her,

But ah! she is so constant and so kind.

Beneath my palm-trees, by the river side,
I sat a-weeping: in the whole world wide
There was no one to ask me why I wept,-
And so I kept

Brimming the water-lily cups with tears

Cold as my fears.