 | Lays of Leisure Hours |  |
90
A SPRING EVENING.
It is a golden dreamy Eve of Spring,
And shelter-seeking birds are on the wing,
And from mine opened window I can see
The churchyard graves, by glad rays streaming free,
Lit brightly from the broad red setting Sun,
Who ends in glory as he first begun.
And shelter-seeking birds are on the wing,
And from mine opened window I can see
The churchyard graves, by glad rays streaming free,
Lit brightly from the broad red setting Sun,
Who ends in glory as he first begun.
These gloomy graves his beams are vain to cheer,
Those dwellings of the Dead—still cold and drear,
Despite the fervent splendour lavished round
Their lone and stern and melancholy bound,
It cannot reach the Dead in their drear cave,
It cannot strike the chains from Death's thralled slave.
Those dwellings of the Dead—still cold and drear,
Despite the fervent splendour lavished round
Their lone and stern and melancholy bound,
It cannot reach the Dead in their drear cave,
It cannot strike the chains from Death's thralled slave.
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But to the Living can this brightness bring
Thoughts full of hope, up-buoyed on seraph wing,
And win the heart to meditate on all
Which must, we know, or soon or late befall—
Nature shrinks not from the all unconscious Dead,
And we shrink not, by her example led.
Thoughts full of hope, up-buoyed on seraph wing,
And win the heart to meditate on all
Which must, we know, or soon or late befall—
Nature shrinks not from the all unconscious Dead,
And we shrink not, by her example led.
This golden dreamy Eve—now troublous Life,
Soothed down from its unquiet stir and strife,
With gentler pulse and with serener breath,
Even meets half way the shadowy Terror—Death!
Oh! many a sweetly-solemn mystic thing
Shall I now learn from thee—Soft Eve of Spring!
Soothed down from its unquiet stir and strife,
With gentler pulse and with serener breath,
Even meets half way the shadowy Terror—Death!
Oh! many a sweetly-solemn mystic thing
Shall I now learn from thee—Soft Eve of Spring!
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