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But there, I lay thee in thy grave,
And I am now alone!

I do not think, where'er thou art,
Thou hast forgotten me;

And I, perhaps, may soothe this heart.
In thinking too of thee:

Yet there was round thee such a dawn Of light ne'er seen before,

As fancy never could have drawn,

And never can restore !

REGINALD HEBER.

1783-1826.

LINES

ADDRESSED TO MRS. HEBER.

If thou wert by my side, my love,
How fast would evening fail
In green Bengala's balmy grove,
Listening the nightingale.

If thou, my love, wert by my side,
My babies at my knee,

How gaily would our pinnace glide
O'er Gunga's mimic sea!

I miss thee at the dawning gray,
When, on our deck reclined,
In careless ease my limbs I lay
And woo the cooler wind.

I miss thee when by Gunga's stream
My twilight steps I guide,

But most beneath the lamp's pale beam,
I miss thee from my side.

I spread my books, my pencil try,

The lingering noon to cheer,

1824.

But miss thy kind approving eye,
Thy meek attentive ear.

But when of morn or eve the star
Beholds me on my knee,

I feel, though thou art distant far,
Thy prayers ascend for me.

Then on! then on! where duty leads,
My course be onward still;
O'er broad Hindostan's sultry meads,
O'er bleak Almorah's hill.

That course, nor Delhi's kingly gates
Nor wild Malwah detain;

For sweet the bliss us both awaits
By yonder western main.

Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they say,
Across the dark-blue sea;

But ne'er were hearts so light and gay

As then shall meet in thee!

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

1794.

1825.

O FAIREST of the rural maids!
Thy birth was in the forest shades;
Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky,
Were all that met thine infant eye.

Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child,
Were ever in the sylvan wild;
And all the beauty of the place
Is in thy heart and on thy face.

The twilight of the trees and rocks
Is in the light shade of thy locks;
Thy step is as the wind, that weaves
Its playful way among the leaves.

Thine eyes are springs, in whose serene
And silent waters heaven is seen;
Their lashes are the herbs that look
On their young figures in the brook.

The forest depths, by foot unpressed,
Are not more sinless than thy breast:
The holy peace, that fills the air
Of those calm solitudes, is there.

THE FUTURE LIFE.

How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps
The disembodied spirits of the dead,

When all of thee that time could wither sleeps
And perishes among the dust we tread?

For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain
If there I meet thy gentle presence not;
Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again

In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.

Will not thy own meek heart demand me there?
That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given;
My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,

And wilt thou never utter it in heaven?

In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind,
In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,
And larger movements of the unfettered mind,

Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?

The love that lived through all the stormy past,
And meekly with my harsher nature bore,
And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last,

Shall it expire with life, and be no more?

A happier lot than mine, and larger light,

Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will

In cheerful homage to the rule of right,

And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.

For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell,

Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroll;

And wrath has left its scar-that fire of hell

Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.

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