THE RAINY DAY. THE day is cold, and dark, and dreary ; My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary. GOD'S-ACRE. I LIKE that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust. Into its furrows shall we all be cast, In the sure faith, that we shall rise again, Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom, With that of flowers, which never bloomed on earth. With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod, This is the field and Acre of our God, This is the place, where human harvests grow! TO THE RIVER CHARLES. RIVER! that in silence windest Through the meadows, bright and free, Till at length thy rest thou findest In the bosom of the sea! Four long years of mingled feeling, Thou hast taught me, Silent River! Oft in sadness and in illness, I have watched thy current glide, Till the beauty of its stillness Overflowed me, like a tide. And in better hours and brighter, Not for this alone I love thee, Nor because thy waves of blue From celestial seas above thee Take their own celestial hue. Where yon shadowy woodlands hide thee, Friends I love have dwelt beside thee, More than this; thy name reminds me Of three friends, all true and tried; And that name, like magic, binds me Closer, closer to thy side. Friends my soul with joy remembers! On the hearth-stone of my heart! "T is for this, thou silent river! That my spirit leans to thee; Thou hast been a generous giver, Take this idle song from me. THE GOBLET OF LIFE. FILLED is Life's goblet to the brim; With solemn voice and slow. No purple flowers,-no garlands green, This goblet, wrought with curious art, Is filled with waters, that upstart, When the deep fountains of the heart, By strong convulsions rent apart, Are running all to waste. And as it mantling passes round, With fennel is it wreathed and crowned, Whose seed and foliage sun-imbrowned Are in its waters steeped and drowned, And give a bitter taste. |