Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/279

 254 PERE LA CHAISE.

Until the shadows lengthen, and we sink To rise no more.

Methinks the monster, Death, Wears not such visage here, so grim and gaunt With terror, as he shows in other lands. Robing himself in sentiment, he wraps His dreary trophies in a veil of flowers, And makes his tombs like temples, or a home So sweet to love, that grief doth fleet away. I saw a mother mourning. The fair tomb Was like a little chapel, hung with wreath, And crucifix. And there she spread the toys That her lost babe had loved, as if she found Sad solace in the memory of its sports. Tears flowed like pearl-drops, yet without the pang That wrings and rends the heart-strings. It would

seem

A tender sorrow, scarce of anguish born, So much the influence of surrounding charms Did mitigate it.

Mid the various groups That visited the dead, I marked the form Of a young female winding through the shades. Just at that point she seemed, where childhood melts But half away, as snows that feel the sun, Yet shrinking closer to their shaded nook, Delay to swell the sparkling stream of youth. She had put off her sabots at the gate, Heavy with clay, and to a new-made grave Hasted alone. Upon its wooden cross

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