THE OLD NORTH BURIAL GROUND.

BY WILLIAM B. TAPPAN.

I STAND where I have stood before in boyhood's sunny

prime,

The same yet not the same, but one who wears the touch of Time;

And gaze around on what was then familiar to the eye, But whose inconstant features tell that years have jour

neyed by,

Since o'er this venerable ground a truant child I played, And chased the bee and plucked the flower, where ancient dust is laid:

And hearkened, in my wondering mood, when tolled the passing bell,

And started at the coffin's cry, as clods upon it fell.

These mossy tombs I recollect, the same o'er which I pored, The same these rhymes and texts, with which my memory was stored;

These humble tokens, too, that lean, and tell where resting bones

Are hidden, though their date and name have perished

from the stones.

How many friends, whose welcome cheered deserted doors,

Have, since my last sojourning, swelled these m stores!

Yon spot, where in the sunset ray a single wh

gleams,

I've visited, I cannot tell how often in my dream

THE OLD NORTH BURIAL GROUND.

45

That spot o'er which I wept, though then too young my

loss to know,

As I beheld my father's form sepulchred far below.

How freshly every circumstance, though seas swept wide between,

And years have vanished since that hour, in vagaries I've

seen!

The lifted lid that countenance-the funeral array,

As vividly as if the scene were but of yesterday.

How pleasant seem the moments now, as up their shad

ows come,

Spent in that domicil which wore the sacred name of

home,

How in the vista years have made, they shine with mellowed light,

To which meridian bliss has nought so beautiful and bright!

How happy were those fireside hours-how happy summer's walk,

When listening to my father's words or joining in the

talk;

How passed like dreams those early hours, till down upon us burst

The avalanche of grief, and laid our pleasures in the dust!

By which the tie of sire and son in death's for e They tell of Time !—though he may heal the

wounded sore,

The household bliss thus blighted, Time! again restore?

Yet if this spot recalls the dead, and brings from leaf

A sentence wrote in bitterness, of raptures, b

brief,

I would not shun it, nor would lose the moral it To teach me by the withered past, for better hoj

And though to warn of future wo, or whisper fu One comes not from the spirit world, a witness Yet from memorials of his dust, 'tis wholesome th And print upon our thought the state to which return.

Wherever then my pilgrimage in coming days s My frequent visions, favourite ground! shall glance to thee;

The holy dead, the bygone hours, the precepts ea Shall sweetly soothe and influence my homewar

heaven.

TO A SISTER.

BY EDWARD EVERETT.

YES, dear one, to the envied train
Of those around thy homage pay;

But wilt thou never kindly deign
To think of him that's far away?
Thy form, thine eye, thine angel smile,
For many years I may not see;

But wilt thou not sometimes the while,
My sister dear, remember me?

But not in fashion's brilliant hall,
Surrounded by the gay and fair,

And thou the fairest of them all,—
O, think not, think not of me there.
But when the thoughtless crowd is gone,
And hushed the voice of senseless glee,

And all is silent, still, and lone,

And thou art sad, remember me.