FLOWERS.

TO A LOST FRIEND.

But a few days have gone,
Since last I gazed upon the manly brow,
As pure as in its pallid beauty now

It sleepeth-noble one!

The hue, that now doth lie
Upon its dimmed brightness, was not there;
On it Life's seal had set its signet fair,

And hope was in thine eye.

So yet had memory limned thee; And when a voice in faltering accents said, That thou, the bright, the beautiful, wert dead,

'Twas a dream's mystery.

For I had seen the flower Droop when the shades of night around it fell; And the babe die, ere hurrying time could tell

Its first short hour.

I had seen many left Among the quicksands of life's treacherous stream, And many a spirit mourn a broken dream

But none of hope bereft.

Flowers, to which noon gave birth, The being breathing but to flee away, Hopes dimly shining in the future's ray,

All-all were of the earth.

But thou wert more far more!
For to thy noble spirit had been given,
The choicest blessings that approving Heaven

On it could pour.

Mild, calm, divinely bright,
Thy spirit shed its influence on all
Who knew thee; as when starbeams fall

With pale and chastened light.

TO A LOST FRIEND.

17

The light around thee shed, Of highest heaven an earnest and a token, But for our blinded spirits might have spoken,

And marked thee for the dead.

And I my voice would raise
Amidst a parents and a sister's wail,
And give a simple verse to tell thy tale-

A leaflet to thy praise.

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