DAVID'S LAMENT OVER ABSALOM. "Cold is thy brow, my son! and I am chill, As to my bosom I have tried to press thee. How was I wont to feel my pulses thrill, Like a rich harp-string, yearning to caress thee, And hear thy sweet "my father," from these dumb And cold lips, Absalom! “The grave hath won thee. I shall hear the gush Of music, and the voices of the young; And life will pass me in the mantling blush, And the dark tresses to the soft winds flung;- "And, oh! when I am stricken, and my heart, Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be broken, How will its love for thee, as I depart, Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep token! It were so sweet, amid death's gathering gloom, To see thee, Absalom! "And now, farewell! 'Tis hard to give thee up, He covered up his face, and bowed himself 259 Firmly and decently, and left him there, TO THE LADY ANNE HAMILTON. W. R. SPENCER. Too late I stayed, forgive the crime, How noiseless falls the foot of Time What eye with clear account remarks When all its sands are diamond sparks Ah! who to sober measurement THE WINGED WORSHIPERS. C. SPRAGUE. AY, guiltless pair. What seek ye from the fields of heaven? Ye have no need of prayer, Ye have no sins to be forgiven. Why perch ye here, The God ye never could offend? Ye never knew The crimes for which we come to weep: To you 'tis given To wake sweet nature's untaught lays; To chirp away a life of praise. Then spread each wing, Far, far above, o'er lakes and lands, In On upward wings could I but fly, I'd bathe in yon bright cloud, the sky. And seek the stars that gem "Twere heaven indeed, Through fields of trackless light to soar, On nature's charms to feed, And nature's own great God adore. THE ISLE OF THE LONG AGO. BENJ. F. TAYLOR. [By permission of S. C. Griggs & Co.] How the winters are drifting, like flakes of snow, And the summers like buds between, And the year in the sheaf,-so they come and they go, There's a magical Isle up the river Time, And the Junes with the roses are straying. And the name of that Isle is the Long Ago, And we bury our treasures there; There are brows of beauty and bosoms of snow; |