SOLEMNLY, mournfully,
Dealing its dole,
The Curfew Bell
Is beginning to toll.

Cover the embers,

And put out the light;
Toil comes with the morning,
And rest with the night.

Dark grow the windows,
And quenched is the fire;
Sound fades into silence,-
All footsteps retire.

No voice in the chambers,
No sound in the hall!
Sleep and oblivion
Reign over all!

II.

The book is completed,

And closed, like the day;

And the hand that has written it

Lays it away.

Dim grow its fancies,
Forgotten they lie;
Like coals in the ashes,
They darken and die.

Song sinks into silence,
The story is told,

The windows are darkened,
The hearth-stone is cold.

Darker and darker

The black shadows fall; Sleep and oblivion Reign over all.

THE SEASIDE AND THE FIRESIDE.

1850.