THE departed! the departed! they visit us in dreams,
And they glide above our memories like shadows over streams;
But where the cheerful lights of home in constant lustre burn,
The departed, the departed can never more return!
The good, the brave, the beautiful, how dreamless is their sleep,
Where rolls the dirge-like music of the ever-tossing deep!
Or where the hurrying night-winds pale winter's robes have spread
Above their narrow palaces, in the cities of the dead.
I look around and feel the awe of one who walks alone
Among the wrecks of former days, in mournful ruin strown;
I start to hear the stirring sounds among the cypress trees,
For the voice of the departed is borne upon the breeze.
That solemn voice! it mingles with each free and careless strain;
I scarce can think earth's minstrelsy will cheer my heart again.
The melody of summer waves, the thrilling notes of birds,
Can never be so dear to me as their remember'd words.
I sometimes dream their pleasant smiles still on me sweetly fall,
Their tones of love I faintly hear my name in sadness call.
I know that they are happy, with their angel-plumage on,
But my heart is
very
desolate to think that they are gone.
I CANNOT make him dead! his fair sunshiny head
Is ever bounding round my study chair;
Yet, when my eyes, now dim with tears, I turn to him, The vision vanishes-he is not there!
I walk my parlour floor, and, through the open door,
I hear a footfall on the chamber stair:
I'm stepping toward the hall to give the boy a call;
And then bethink me that he is not there!
I thrid the crowded street, a satchell'd lad I meet,
With the same beaming eyes and colour'd hair:
And, as he's running by, follow him with my eye,
Scarcely believing that he is not there!
I know his face is hid under the coffin lid;
Closed are his eyes, cold is his forehead fair;
My hand that marble felt; o'er it in prayer I knelt;
Yet my heart whispers that he is not there!
I cannot make him dead! when passing by the bed,
So long watch'd over with parental care,
My spirit and my eye seek it inquiringly,
Before the thought comes that he is not there!
When at the cool, gray break of day, from sleep I wake,
With my first breathing of the morning air,
My soul goes up, with joy, to Him who gave my boy:
Then comes the sad thought that he is not there!
When at the day's calm close, before we seek repose,
I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer:
Whate'er I may be saying, I am, in spirit, praying
For our boy's spirit, though-he is not there!
Not there! Where, then, is he? The form I used to see Was but the raiment that he used to wear.
The grave, that now doth press upon that cast-off dress, Is but his wardrobe lock'd!-he is not there!
He lives! In all the past, he lives; nor, to the last,
Of seeing him again will I despair;
In dreams I see him now; and, on his angel brow,
I see it written, "Thou shalt see me there!"
Yes, we all live to God! Father, thy chastening rod
So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear,
That, in the spirit-land, meeting at thy right hand,
"Twill be our heaven to find that he is there!
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