Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/246

 230 WILLIAM ROSS WALLACE. [1830-40. III. Ah, well that tree remembers them ! And still she whispers of the time When couched beneath the branches there, You, trembling, wove your earliest rhyme ; The branches shook all o'er with bliss ; The cataract louder hailed the morn — They thought " perchance, this hour, near us Another poet-soul is born ! " IV. I know the morning of thy heart, With all its dear young rhythm, is past ; I know the yellow leaves of death Are on your coffined comrade cast ; * And she the pure, the beautiful, Sunk long ago to shrouded sleep ; And age, and sorrow dim — but, no! I will not sing if thus you weep. Why weep ? — the glorious girl and friend Are waiting you on Eden-hills, Where summer is forever nooned. And gone all weight of earthly ills ! Thy poesies if not so glad. Yet with Experience deeper chime : The highest thought from sorrow comes. And lai'ge humanity with time. Then weep for these no more ! — I feel My life ebbs with each word I sing, And, like my early friend and love. My heart to death is withering : One guerdon only would I ask — Lay me when dead — as on a shrine — On that first song your young heart breathed To your own dear, lost Aveline ! at South Hanover. He was remarkable for superb mind and manly amiability. THE GRANDEUR OF REPOSE. So rest! and Rest shall slay your many woes ; Motion is god-like — god-like is repose, A mountain-stillness of majestic might. Whose peaks are glorious with the quiet light Of suns when Day is at his solemn close. Nor deem that slumber must ignoble be. Jove labored lustily once in airy fields ; And over the cloudy lea He planted many a budding shoot Whose liberal nature daily, nightly yields A store of starry fruit : His labor done, the weary god went back Up the long mountain-track To his great house ; thei-e he did while away With lightest thought a well-won holiday ; For all the Powers crooned softly an old tune. Wishing their Sire might sleep Through all the sultry noon And cold blue night ; and very soon They heard the awful Thunderer breathing low and deep : And in the hush that dropped adown the spheres. And in the quiet of the awe-struck space, The worlds learned worship at the birth of years : They looked upon their Lord's calm, king- ly fiice. And bade Religion come and kiss each stany place. DUTY IN SORROW. Was He not sad amid the grief and strife, The Lord of liglit and life, Whose torture made humanity divine Upon that woful hill of Palestine ? Then is it not far better thus to be Thoughtful, and brave, and melancholy, Than given up to idiot revelry Amid the unreligious brood of folly ?
 * Hon. ,Tohn .Tenkins, of Mississippi, who ^vas a student