Too long in the meadow staying,
Where the cowslip bends,
With the buttercups delaying
As with early friends,

Did the little maiden stay.

Sorrowful the tale for us,

We, too, loiter mid life's flowers,

A little while so glorious,

So soon lost in darker hours.

All love lingering on their way, Like Red Riding Hood, the darling,— The flower of fairy lore.

THE FIRST GRAVE.

IN THE NEW CHURCHYARD AT BROMPTON.

A SINGLE grave!-the only one
In this unbroken ground,

Where yet the garden leaf and flower
Are lingering around.

A single grave!-my heart has felt

How utterly alone

In crowded halls, were breathed for me

Not one familiar tone;

The shade where forest trees shut out
All but the distant sky;—
I've felt the loneliness of night
When the dark winds pass'd by:
My pulse has quicken'd with its awe,
My lip has gasped for breath;
But what were they to such as this,-
The solitude of death!

A single grave !—we half forget
How sunder human ties,

When round the silent place of rest
A gathered kindred lies.

We stand beneath the haunted yew,
And watch each quiet tomb;
And in the ancient churchyard feel
Solemnity, not gloom :

The place is purified with hope,

The hope that is of prayer;

And human love, and heavenward thought,

And pious faith, are there.

The wild flowers spring amid the

And many a stone appears,― Carved by affection's memory, Wet with affection's tears.

grass,

The golden chord which binds us all
Is loosed, not rent in twain;
And, love, and hope, and fear, unite
To bring the past again.

But THIS grave is so desolate,
With no remembering stone;
No fellow-graves for sympathy,-
'Tis utterly alone.

I do not know who sleeps beneath,

His history or name,—
Whether if, lonely in his life,

He is in death the same:
Whether he died unloved, unmourned,

The last leaf on the bough;

Or, if some desolated hearth

Is weeping for him now.

Perhaps this is too fanciful;—
Though single be his sod,
Yet not the less it has around
The presence of his God.
It may be weakness of the heart,
But yet its kindliest, best:
Better if in our selfish world
It could be less represt.

Those gentler charities which draw
Man closer with his kind;

Those sweet humanities which make

The music which they find. How many a bitter word 'twould hush,— How many a pang 'twould save, If life more precious held those ties Which sanctify the grave!

THE MOON.

THE moon is sailing o'er the sky,
But lonely all, as if she pined

For somewhat of companionship,

And felt it were in vain she shined:

Earth is her mirror, and the stars

Are as the court around her throne;

She is a beauty and a queen,—

But what is this? she is alone.

Is there not one-not one-to share
Thy glorious royalty on high?

I cannot choose but pity thee,
Thou lovely orphan of the sky.

I'd rather be the meanest flower

That grows, my mother earth, on thee,
So there were others of my kin,

To blossom, bloom, droop, die with me.

Earth, thou hast sorrow, grief, and death;
But with these better could I bear,
Than reach and rule yon radiant sphere,
And be a solitary there.

VENICE.

MORN on the Adriatic, every wave

Is turned to light, and mimics the blue sky,
As if the ocean were another heaven;

Column, and tower, and fretted pinnacle

Are white with sunshine; and the few soft shades Do but relieve the eye.

The morning time

The summer time, how beautiful they are !

A buoyant spirit fills the natural world,

And sheds its influence on humanity;

Man draws his breath more lightly, and forgets

The weight of cares that made the night seem long.

How beautiful the summer, and the morn,

When opening over forest and green field,
Waking the singing birds, till every leaf
Vibrates with music; and the flowers unfold,
Heavy and fragrant with the dewy sleep.
But here they only call to life and light
The far wide waste of waters, and the walls
Of a proud city,-yet how beautiful!
Not the calm beauty of a woodland world,

Fraught with sweet idleness and minstrel-dreams:
But beauty which awakes the intellect

More than the feelings; that of power and mind—
Man's power, man's mind-for never city raised
A prouder or a fairer brow than Venice,
The daughter and the mistress of the sea.

Far spread the ocean,—but it spread to bear
Her galleys o'er its depths, for war or wealth;
And raised upon foundations, which have robbed
The waters of its birthright, stand her halls.
Now enter in her palaces: a world
Has paid its tribute to their luxury;
The harvest of the rose, on Syria's plains,
Is reaped for Venice; from the Indian vales
The sandal-wood is brought to burn in Venice;
The ambergris that floats on eastern seas,
And spice, and cinnamon, and pearls that lie
Deep in the gulf of Ormus, are for Venice;
The Persian loom doth spread her silken floors;
And the clear gems from far Golconda's mines
Burn on the swanlike necks of her proud daughters—
For the fair wife of a Venetian noble

Doth often bear upon her ivory arm

The ransom of a kingdom. By the sword,
Drawn by the free and fearless; by the sail,
That sweeps the sea for riches, which are power,
The state of Venice is upheld: she is
A Christian Tyre,-save that her sea-girt gates
Do fear no enemy, and dread no fall.

Morn on the Adriatic, bright and glad!
And yet we are not joyful; there is here
A stronger influence than sweet Nature's joy:
The scene hath its own sorrow, and the heart
Ponders the lessons of mortality

Too gravely to be warmed by that delight