New poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

When I sleep the dreamless sleep
Once to come on every eye,
Set no stubborn stone, to keep
Silent watch where I may lie.
Marble were too hard and cold
Then to tower above my heart:—
Never let my name be told
By a lifeless form of art!

Nature,—that I loved so well,
Till the love of earth was o'er,—
Let her sweetly show and tell
What I loved, when I'm no more.
When the flame of vital fire
Leaves but ashes of my breast,
Let a living, winged lyre
Sound the requiem o'er my rest.

Lay me where the rustling pine,
Sighing, o'er my dust shall wave;
Fondly let some creeping vine
Spread and cling about my grave.
By the birds that wildly sing,—
By the verdure of the tree,—
By the lowest leafy thing,—
May my friends remember me!

Thou green wood of Medford, in calm sylvan shade,
A proud mausoleum thy ground-swell is made!
Where wild robins carol, and pine-branches sigh,
And wind-minstrels harp, doth the Young Artist lie;
For there, on the spot where the death-angel gave
His pure spirit wing, is his lone forest grave.

Of Nature all fair were the features to limn,
And sweet came her breath and her music to him;
Sublime was her temple,—her worship unfeigned;
While bright was her altar,—the gifts all unstained;

When he, full of fervor his off'rings to pay,
Repaired to her courts, on that clear morn of May.

With tablet and pencils, and small drinking-cup,
To bring for his thirst the cool spring-water up,
The young devotee hill and dale rambled o'er,
To sketch from the ceiling—the hangings—the floor
Of that lofty temple in beauty that stands
To man's wond'ring vision, not reared by his hands.

Where full bushes blossomed, and moss-patches lay,
With light step he threaded his lone, pathless way,
And entered the sweet forest fane, to beguile
An hour at its altar,—to roam through its aisle,—
To lean on its pillars, and perfumes inhale
That flowed on its air, soul and sense to regale.

The soft lights and shades, in their flittings, he traced,
As caught through the vine-trails and boughs interlaced,
Where fir-tassels hung to the green-roofed arcade,
And young leaflets clapped, as the wind-spirits played;
He sketched turf-mosaic, and tall-crested tree,
And light skiffs afloat on the blue ether sea.

So bland was the season, so peaceful the scene,
Such harmony sweet earth and heaven seemed between,
From low-purling brooklet to high-singing bird,
And balm-freighted breeze in the forest-tops heard,—
In that grand cathedral, each pipe and each chord
Appeared as in holiness tuned to the Lord.

He saw, at his foot-side, the spring's tender flower
Its heart-folds display to the life-giving Power;
The green tendrils reaching, the lithe sapling nod,
The fount leap and flash, to an all-moving God!

The Young Artist turned to the high azure dome,
And yearned for a glimpse of the Great Spirit's home.

He mused, and he worshipped,—in rapture sublime,
He seemed passing over the confines of time;
Where vision the glories began to unfold
Which man must not look from the dust to behold.
His soul felt her wings spread and burn with a might
Too strong for the clay to restrain from the flight.

He heard dulcet music around and above,
While new were the voices,—the strains all of love!
There seemed seraph bands from the skies on their way,
To join with the earth in an anthem of May;
Their path opened back, traced with light and with flowers,
From their blissful world, while they sang thus to ours:—

Earth, in thy lowliness,
Strong was thy trust:
Power,—glory,—holiness,
Light now thy dust!
Deep, when thy chill may be,
Heaven bendeth still o'er thee!
Then doth thy jubilee
Sound, “God is just!”

Sweet now thy pæans clear,
On balmy air,
Rise to Jehovah's ear,
His praise to bear.
Love, with its thousand ties,
Thee bindeth to the skies,
Watched by its holy eyes,
With ceaseless care.

The Young Artist's spirit was ardent and hale;
But thin was its vesture,—the fabric was frail:
The kindling within of a rapture divine
Had flamed, the immortal consuming the shrine!
He calmly reclined on the damp forest knoll,
A form dropped to earth by the transport of soul.

A high, branching pine threw its arms o'er his rest;
The wild-wood aroma fell sweet on his breast;
His hushed lips were passed by the life's fleeting breath,
And chill on his brow came the night-dew of death;
Whilst none but the convoy who bore him on high
Beheld when the cold angel sealed up his eye.

SONG OF THE ANGEL CONVOY.

Swift from thy Father-home above,
Where all is true and fair,
Spirit, we come on wings of love,
To waft thee safely there.
When death shall loose the silver cord,
And break the golden bowl,
We must present thee to our Lord,
A holy, ransomed soul.

Tremble not now to be undressed,
And clothed in dust no more;
For ready is the seamless vest,—
The same thy Saviour wore.
Nor scorching sun nor chilling blast
Shall touch thee, as we rise;
Soon will the pearly gates be past;
And naught within them dies!

O, it is done,—the bowl is broke,
Untwined the silver tie!
Clay hath received the sundering stroke
That frees thee for the sky.
Our kiss, the pledge of truth, receive,
And give us thine, of trust:
Spirit, rejoice all sin to leave,
And dwell among the just.

Softly from out earth's thorny vale,
In pain and darkness trod,
Ne'er do our soaring pinions fail
To waft the heirs of God.
With all the saints shalt thou unite,
And see each beaming brow,
Crowned by the love of Christ with light,
From man's first fall till now.

List! from our fair and flowery ground
We hear the raptured choir!
Never a strain of woe they sound,
Nor tears can damp their lyre.
And sweeter, higher, swells the song,
As near thy rest we come:
Spirit, 't is from the glorious throng
Who sing thy welcome home!

The spring blossoms vanished,—the full summer moon
Her silver transfused through the mantle of June;
She waned, and she changed; and the broad sunny sky
Impurpled, and ripened the fruits of July;
When childhood was lured for the wild sweets to stray,
To find where our lost one from time passed away.

The cup, which no fount should for him again fill,
And sketch-book and pencils, were close by him still:
Composed was his posture, as infancy sleeps
When watch by its cradle the fond mother keeps.
Unseen and unearthly the watcher that stood
A guard o'er his rest, in that deep, solemn wood!

[OMITTED]

But where should they bear him,—what precincts should keep
The Young Artist, wrapped in his long, dreamless sleep?
His spirit departed, a moment with voice
Those mute lips seemed opening, to utter the choice:—
“In this holy solitude, stillness, and shade,
Beloved to the end, be the soul's raiment laid!”

The mother,—who 'd borne him so long on her breast,—
The sire—brother—sister,—said, “Here let him rest!
O, here, where he gave back his soul to his God,
The clods be his pillow,—his covering the sod!—
His dust let the bosom of Nature entomb,
Till waked with a beauty immortal to bloom!”

His chamber they made in that pure forest ground,
But marred not with barrier the now sacred bound:
No cold, graven stone o'er his bed did they place,
To cumber the mound;—nor a line did they trace:
With fresh native verdure his calm couch is hung,
By thousand winged minstrels his requiem sung.

And there, in the earth of his chosen retreat,
That had his last footfall,—his heart's latest beat,—
His face to the same point of light in the sky
That sent the last ray to his dim, closing eye,
Alone in his holy repose sleepeth he,
The monument o'er him his Evergreen Tree.