Then such memo'ries as the young
Now can only claim,

Would entrance the loving tongue

With the honoured name.

Then nor Love nor Life would pall,

Ere its work was done :

Honest tears would freely fall

Tears that injure none.

Sad indeed to close dear eyes

That shall gaze no more;

How much sadder to despise

Those revered before !

Think not that the world would lose

By the' arrested heart;

All men, at some moment, choose

The diviner part :

Happy then to close their lot

Wheresoever found,

Garnered up, nor left to rot
On the' ungenial ground.

THE OLD MAN'S SONG.

AGE is not a thing to measure
By the course of moon or star;
Time's before us; at our pleasure
We may follow near or far:

Strength and Beauty he has given—
They are his to take away;

But the Heart that well has striven

Is no slave of Night or Day.

See, upon yon mountain-ridges,
How the fir-woods spread between,
Reconcile the snow-clad edges
With the valley's vernal green :
So the lines of grave reflection,
You decipher on my brow,
Keep my age in glad connexion
With the young that flourish now.

Not that now poetic fire

Can along my life-strings run,
As when my Memnonian lyre
Welcomed every rising sun;
Though my heart no more rejoices
In the flashes of my brain,
In the freshness of your voices
Let me hear my songs again.

Did I love ?-let Nature witness,
Conscious of my tears and truth;
Do I love ?-O fatal fitness !

Still requiring youth for youth!

Yet, while thought the bliss remembers,

All delight is not gone by ;

Warm your spirits o'er my embers,

Friends! and learn to love as I

O my children! O my brothers!
If for self I lived too much,
Be my pleasures now for others,
Every passion now be such :
Be the chillness life-destroying,
That could make me slow to feel,
To enjoy with your enjoying,
To be zealous with your zeal.

Grant me not, ye reigning Hours!
Virtues that beseem the young,
Vigour for my failing powers,
Music for my faltering tongue :
Let me, cheerful thoughts retaining,
Live awhile, nor fear to die,

Ever new affections gaining,

Such as Heaven might well supply.

JUNE, 1843.

DOMESTIC FAME.

WHY is the Grave so silent? Why is the Tomb so dead? Wherefore this gloomy secret on each departed head?

Why do we name them seldom, and then with voices low, As if some shame were on them, or superhuman woe?

Were Death the sleep eternal that some despairing feign, Had never Faith engendered the hope to meet again,—

Still why should this great absence obliterate with its tears The happiest recollections and sympathies of years?

Oh, no! Death could not banish the love that lived complete, And passed away untarnished to its celestial seat!

Oh, no! 'tis not the living that we should harshly blame,

But that men lightly cherish their pure domestic fame.

How few leave not behind them some cause to bless the tomb, That mercifully closes, and pardons in its gloom !

How few go from us, leaving the thoughts of them so dear,
That aye the prayer besets us, "O God! that they were here!"

So that in distant evenings, when joyous faces glow
About the Christmas fire-light and laughter melts the snow,-

In pauses of the revel, some heart without a fear,
Will passionately murmur-" Ah! why are they not here?"

Or that in weary seasons, when sickness racks the brain,
And lordly Reason falters, and Will is only pain,—

Those whom they loved to counsel may mystically hear
Their voices leading onwards the path they trod when here :

Or that in awful moments, when evil seems set free

To tempt mankind to question what God of Truth there be,——

The sense how they, too, suffered and conquered, serves to cheer The struggler, dimly conscious of spirits watching near.

Not, then, to Heroes only, to Poet, Statesman, King,
Let care of future glory its anxious duties bring;

There is no name so lowly, that may not raise a shrine
Of living hearts, to honour its memory as Divine !

IN MEMORIAM.

MRS. EDWARD DENISON.

'Tis right for her to sleep between
Some of those old Cathedral walls,
And right too that her grave is green
With all the dew and rain that falls.

'Tis well the organ's solemn sighs

Should soar and sink around her rest,

And almost in her ear should rise

The prayers of those she loved the best.

'Tis also well this air is stirred

By Nature's voices loud and low,

By thunder and the chirping bird,

And grasses whispering as they grow.

For all her spirit's earthly course
Was as a lesson and a sign

How to o'errule the hard divorce

That parts things natuʼral and divine.

Undaunted by the clouds of fear,
Undazzled by a happy day,

She made a Heaven about her here,

And took how much! with her away.

SALISBURY, Nov. 1843.