revelation of pure quality and perfected being. To mourn for her departure would be to distrust Providence, and forget the loftiest lesson of her life. Those only are worthy to have been her friends, and to enjoy the love of equally cultivated souls, who can inspire Christian courage from such fellowship, can feel that the earth is more beautiful for their career, and that experience offers nobler opportunities since they have so easily bent its discipline to religious uses; and who, rising above all selfish grief, can say, in meditative moments when they are present to the memory,—
O, though oft depressed and lonely,
All our fears are laid aside,
If we but remember only
Such as these have lived and died.'
[The following lines are intended as a tribute to the memory of the lamented Mrs. SARAH C. EDGARTON MAYO, late Editor of the 'Rose of Sharon.']
NATURE has speech, a language of her own,
A voice her lovers heed, and they alone.
Her faithful worshippers a meaning find
In sounds which others treat as passing wind;
No need to them the opening lips should part,
She speaks not to the ear, but to the heart.
As some bright being on whose palsied tongue
A deathlike stillness has unbroken hung,
Betrays in look the passions as they flow,
As lucid streams reveal the depths below,
So nature makes her eloquent appeal
To minds that ponder and to hearts that feel.
There is a spot, a rural, calm retreat,
Which oft from busier scenes invites my feet;
This spot by Flora's fairest gifts is graced,
Each gift still fairer since disposed with taste;
In hues harmonious wedded flowers are tied,
And art and nature stand up side by side.
Delicious garden, how the silken hours
Have sweetly sped among thy rosy bowers!
How oft my spirit, when surcharged with care,
Has fled to thee and found a solace there!
How often, when thy portals met my sight,
The load has dropt, and lo, my heart was light!
Mine has it been thy fragrant paths to range,
And note thy features in the season's change;
When with elastic step the spring tripped forth,
Escaped the cold embraces of the North,
Her silken tassels on the hazel hung,
Decked earth in green and filled the groves with song,
Her warmer breath I felt; nor less the root
Her influence owned and upward sent the shoot,
While bursting buds proclaimed from every spray
Her welcome advent and her milder sway:
Then with a new-born joy thy paths I've sought,
And seen the embryo flower with promise fraught.
When ardent summer from his torrid throne,
Had bared his bosom and ungirt his zone,
Or in the flashing waters wanton played,
Or wooed the zephyr and the cooling shade;
When Phoebus from on high sent down his ray,
And full-blown beauty owned the god of day,
How have I loved thee in thy hour of prime!
But how that love declare in feeble rhyme !
O could my verse an equal splendor show,
Breathe thy rich fragrance, with thy beauties glow,
Did thy sweet charms my simple lay adorn
With blush more radiant than the blush of morn,
These lines on memory's page should trace my name,
For he who lives in song, shall live in fame!
When skies autumnal with a passing frown
The bloom had withered and the leaf turned brown,
Still to my favorite spot my steps I'd bend,
And take the last memento of a friend.
Some hardier sister of the lovely band
Against the shock of ruder winds would stand, And when a thousand wrecks bestrewed the place Would raise its head and show a cheerful face; Thus have I seen, where fate with ruthless hand Had stretched her iron sceptre o'er the land, Some dauntless spirit meet the adverse blow, Withstand the charge that laid his comrades low, Amidst the ruins lift his stalwart form,
And like the mountain smile above the storm.
And e'en stern winter, that with icy breath
Sends forth his sleet and points the dart with death,
In vain o'er thee his winding sheet shall spread
Of purest white, and claim thee for the dead;
In happier seasons thou shalt still rejoice,
When spring shall wake thee with her jocund voice,
Upstarting from thy bed refreshed shalt rise,
Life in thy heart and pleasure in thine eyes.
So some fond mother, leaning o'er the bed
On which her child in still repose is laid,
Spreads the soft cover, curtains out the light,
And trustful leaves him to the gloom of night,
Conscious, where day glares not nor sounds molest,
Sounder the sleep and sweeter is the rest.
Thus have I marked thee through the changing year, Thyself as changeful, yet in cach change dear;
And only once in all my blissful hours
Has sorrow met me in those leafy bowers.
But ah, the memory of that mournful day
No time can blot, no tears can wash away!
Bright was the sun, and cloudless was the sky;
(Ah! who could fancy death or sorrow nigh?)
With buoyant spirit business I forsook,
And to the wonted spot my way I took,
From every care by pleasant thoughts beguiled,
For care came not where all around me smiled.
At length arrived in mute delight I stood,
Then hailed the flowers -'a beauteous sisterhood;' But as I looked my fancy seemed to trace
A shade of sorrow in each pensive face;
And then, alas! I saw a vacant spot
Where SHARON'S ROSE once stood, but now was not.
Loath to believe the canker had been there
And preyed on one as excellent as fair,
To that lone spot again I turned my eye-
Again it stared out with its vacancy.
'And can it be,' I mentally exclaimed,
'That at the choicest flower the shaft was aimed?
That she who stood like Dian 'midst her train
Of nymphs attendant, should the first be slain?
Sure, shadowy visions on my senses gleam;
Wake me, O wake me,
from this dismal dream!
Rouse me to truth and bid the phantom fly,
And bless my longings with reality!
Thus weeping parents, of their child bereft,
The substance seek, the shadow only left,
And fancy that they see in every toy
The playful image of their darling boy,
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