Page:Felicia Hemans in The Amulet 1827.pdf/9



"We buried him where he was wont to pray,    By the calm lake, e'en here, at eventide; We reared this Cross in token where he lay,     For on the Cross, he said, his Lord had died! Now hath he surely reached, o'er mount and wave, That flowery land whose green turf hides no grave!

"But I am sad—I mourn the clear light taken    Back from my people, o'er whose place it shone, The pathway to the better shore forsaken,     And the true words forgotten, save by one, Who hears them faintly sounding from the past, Mingled with death-songs in each fitful blast."

Then spoke the wanderer forth with kindling eye: "Son of the Wilderness! despair thou not, Though the bright hour may seem to thee gone by,    And the cloud settled o'er thy nation's lot: Heaven darkly works,—yet where the seed hath been, There shall the fruitage, glowing yet, be seen.

"Hope on, hope ever!—by the sudden springing    Of green leaves which the winter hid so long; And by the bursts of free, triumphant singing,     After cold, silent months, the woods among; And by the rending of the frozen chains, Which bound the glorious rivers on their plains;