They bid me to the festive board: I go, a smiling guest: Their laughter and their revelry Are torture to my breast! They call for music; and there comes Some old familiar strain: I dash away the starting tear, And turn, and smile again. But, oh my heart is wandering Back to my sisters at their play, — The meadows in their bloom, The blackbird on the scented thorn, The murmuring of the stream,— The sounds upon the evening breeze, Like voices in a dream; The watchful eyes that never more The smiles, oh! stop that melody, I cannot bear it now! And heed not when the stranger sighs, Nor mark the tears that start, There can be no companionship For loneliness of heart! SARAH STICKNEY, (MRS. ELLIS.) DEATH. COME not in terrors clad, to claim An unresisting prey; Come, like an evening shadow, Death! So stealthily, so silently! - And shut mine eyes, and steal my Then willingly, -oh! willingly With thee I'll go away. breath: What need to clutch, with iron grasp, What gentlest touch might take? What need, with aspect dark, to scare, So awfully, so terribly? The wearied soul would hardly care, Called quietly, — called tenderly, From thy dread power to break! 'Tis not as when thou markest out The young, the gay, the blest, The loved, the loving, they who dream So happily, so hopefully! Then, harsh thy kindest call may seem; And shrinkingly, — reluctantly, The summoned may obey. But I have drank enough of life, (The cup assigned to me, Dashed with a little sweet at best, So scantily! so scantily!) -To know full well that all the rest, More bitterly, more bitterly! Drugged to the last will be. And I may live some heart to pain, That kindly cares for me, To pain, but not to bless. O Death! Come quietly,come lovingly, |