Even as the Spring comes to the rose, So what should woman's hand unclose?-- The song is sad which thou hast sung: Ah, yes! the fire is in thy breast, Life has no calm, no listless rest, Thou, blending in thy harp and heart With hopes that wear an angel's wings, The stern, the selfish, and the cold, But thou-go ask thy lute what fate And it will tell thee tears await The path of one like thee: Too sensitive, like early flowers, One unkind breath to bear, What, in this weary world of ours, But tears can be thy share? Yet little would I that such words I am so used to mournful chords, I pity those who sigh for thee, I fling thee laurel offerings, I greet the music of thy strings-— ON THE FUNERAL OF CHARLES THE FIRST*, AT NIGHT, IN ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL, WINDSOR. BY THE REV. W. L. BOWLES. THE castle clock had toll'd midnight- The coffin bore his name, that those 'PEACE to the DEAD' no children sung, No prayers were read, no knell was rung, We only heard the Winter's wind, A moonbeam, from the arches' height, And all the windows shone. In the account of the burial of the king in Windsor Castle by Sir Thomas Herbert, the spot where the body was laid is described minutely, opposite the eleventh stall. The whole account is singularly impressive; but it is extraordinary it should ever have been supposed that the place of interment was unknown, when this description existed. At the late accidental disinterment, some of his hair was cut off. Soon after, the following lines were written, which I now set before the reader for the first time. 80 FUNERAL OF CHARLES THE FIRST. We thought we saw the banners then, 'Tis gone! again, on tombs defaced, And now the chilly, freezing air, We laid the broken marble floor- THE SCULPTURED CHILDREN, ON CHANTREY'S MONUMENT AT LICHFIELD. BY MRS. HEMANS. Thus lay The gentle babes, thus girdling one another Within their alabaster innocent arms.-SHAKSPEARE. FAIR images of sleep! On whose calm lids the dreamy quiet lies, Of flowers in mossy dells, Fill'd with the hush of night and summer skies; How many hearts have felt Your silent beauty melt Their strength to gushing tenderness away! From depths of buried years All freshly bursting, have confess'd your sway! How many eyes will shed Such drops, from Memory's troubled fountains wrung! While Hope hath blights to bear, While Love breathes mortal air, While roses perish ere to glory sprung. Yet, from a voiceless home, To bend and linger o'er your lovely rest; And the soft breathings low Of babes, that grew and faded on her breast; If then the dovelike tone Of those faint murmurs gone, O'er her sick sense too piercingly return; If for the soft bright hair, And brow and bosom fair, And life, now dust, her soul too deeply yearn; O gentle forms entwined May wave, so clasp'd, but never can unlink; A still small voice, a sound By all the pure meek mind |