Take her up tenderly, Ere her limbs frigidly Smooth and compose them; And her eyes, close them, Staring so blindly! Dreadfully staring Through muddy impurity, As when with the daring Last look of despairing Fix'd on futurity. Perishing gloomily, Into her rest.— Cross her hands humbly, Over her breast! Owning her weakness, Her evil behavior, And leaving, with meekness, Her sins to her Saviour! THOMAS HOOD. THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. FULL knee-deep lies the winter snow, He lieth still: he doth not move: He hath no other life above. He will not see the dawn He gave me a friend, and a true true-love, of So long as you have been with us, He froth'd his bumpers to the brim ; Old year, you shall not die; We did so laugh and cry with you He was full of joke and jest, But all his merry quips are o'er. To see him die, across the waste Every one for his own. The night is starry and cold, my friend, And the New year blithe and bold, my friend, Comes up to take his own. How hard he breathes! Over the snow I heard just now the crowing cock. The shadows flicker to and fro: The cricket chirps: the light burns low . 'Tis nearly twelve o'clock. Shake hands before you die. Old year, we'll dearly rue for you: His face is growing sharp and thin. That standeth there alone, And waiteth at the door. There's a new foot on the floor, my friend, And a new face at the door, my friend, A new face at the door. ALFRED TENNYSON. THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heap'd in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day. "THE MELANCHOLY DAYS ARE COME." Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves; the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again. |