Page:The Carcanet.djvu/167



'Tis thine alone to calm the pious breast, With silent confidence and holy rest; From the great God we spring, to thee we tend, Path, motive, guide, original and end.

Translated From Boethius By Ben Jonson.

The mourner banquets on memory; making that which seems the poison of life, its aliment. During the hours of regret we recal the images of departed joys, and in weeping over each tender remembrance, tears so softly shed embalm the wounds of grief. To be denied the privilege of pouring forth our love and our lamentations over the grave of one who in life was our happiness, is to shut up the soul of the survivor in a solitary tomb, where the bereaved heart pines in secret till it breaks with the fulness of uncommunicated sorrow: but listen to the mourner; give his feelings way, and, like the river rolling from the hills into the valley, they will flow with a gradually gentler stream, till they become lost in time's wide ocean. Miss Porter.

Oh the sad day When friends shall shake their heads, and say

Of miserable me,

" Hark how he groans ! look how he pants for breath ! " See how he struggles with the pangs of death !" When they shall say of these poor eyes How hollow and how dim they be ! Mark how his breast doth swell and rise Against his potent enemy !