THE EXILE'S DIRGE.

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,

Nor the furious Winter's rages,

Thou thy worldly task hast done,

Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.

Cymbeline.

I attended a funeral where there were a number of the German settlers present. After I had performed such service as is usual on similar occasions, a most venerable-looking old man came forward, and asked me if I were willing that they should perform some of their peculiar rites. He opened a very ancient version of Luther's Hymns, and they all began to sing, in German, so loud that the woods echoed the strain. There was something affecting in the singing of these ancient people, carrying one of their brethren to his last home, and using the language and rites which they had brought with them over the sea from the Vaterland, a word which often occurred in this hymn. It was a long, slow, and mournful air, which they sung as they bore the body along: the words "mein Gott," "mein Bruder,” and “Vaterland,” died away in distant echoes among the woods. I shall long remember that funeral hymn. Flint's Recollections of the Valley of the Mississippi.

THERE went a dirge through the forest's gloom.

-An exile was borne to a lonely tomb.

"Brother!" (so the chant was sung
In the slumberer's native tongue,)
"Friend and brother! not for thee
Shall the sound of weeping be:-

THE EXILE'S dirge.

Long the Exile's woe hath lain
On thy life a withering chain;
Music from thine own blue streams,
Wander'd through thy fever-dreams;
Voices from thy country's vines,
Met thee 'midst the alien pines,
And thy true heart died away;
And thy spirit would not stay."

So swell'd the chant; and the deep wind's moan
Seem'd through the cedars to murmur-

"Brother! by the rolling Rhine,

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"Gone!"

Stands the home that once was thine-
Brother! now thy dwelling lies

Where the Indian arrow flies!
He that blest thine infant head,
Fills a distant greensward bed;
She that heard thy lisping prayer,
Slumbers low beside him there;
They that earliest with thee play'd,
Rest beneath their own oak shade,
Far, far hence!-yet sea nor shore
Haply, brother! part ye more;

God hath call'd thee to that band
In the immortal Fatherland!"

"The Fatherland!"—with that sweet word
A burst of tears 'midst the strain was heard.

"Brother! were we there with thee,
Rich would many a meeting be!
Many a broken garland bound,
Many a mourn'd and lost one found!

But our task is still to bear,
Still to breathe in changeful air;
Loved and bright things to resign,
As even now this dust of thine;
Yet to hope!-to hope in Heaven,
Though flowers fall, and ties be riven-
Yet to pray! and wait the hand
Beckoning to the Fatherland!"

And the requiem died in the forest's gloom;-
They had reach'd the Exile's lonely tomb.

THE DREAMING CHILD.

Alas! what kind of grief should thy years know?
Thy brow and cheek are smooth as waters be
When no breath troubles them.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

AND is there sadness in thy dreams, my boy? What should the cloud be made of?-blessed child! Thy spirit, borne upon a breeze of joy,

All day hath ranged through sunshine, clear, yet mild:

And now thou tremblest!—wherefore?—in thy soul
There lies no past, no future.-Thou hast heard
No sound of presage from the distance roll,
Thy heart bears traces of no arrowy word.

THE DREAMING CHILD.

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From thee no love hath gone; thy mind's young eye
Hath look'd not into Death's, and thence become
A questioner of mute Eternity,

A weary searcher for a viewless home:

Nor hath thy sense been quicken'd unto pain,
By feverish watching for some step beloved;
Free are thy thoughts, an ever-changeful train,
Glancing like dewdrops, and as lightly moved.

Yet now, on billows of strange passion toss'd,
How art thou wilder'd in the cave of sleep!
My gentle child! 'midst what dim phantoms lost,
Thus in mysterious anguish dost thou weep?

Awake! they sadden me-those early tears,
First gushings of the strong dark river's flow,
That must o'ersweep thy soul with coming years,
Th' unfathomable flood of human woe!

Awful to watch, ev'n rolling through a dream,
Forcing wild spray-drops but from childhood's eyes!
Wake, wake! as yet thy life's transparent stream
Should wear the tinge of none but summer skies.

Come from the shadow of those realms unknown, Where now thy thoughts dismay'd and darkling rove; Come to the kindly region all thine own,

The home, still bright for thee with guardian love.

Happy, fair child! that yet a mother's voice
Can win thee back from visionary strife!—
Oh! shall my soul, thus waken'd to rejoice,
Start from the dreamlike wilderness of life?

THE CHARMED PICTURE.

Oh! that those lips had language!-Life hath pass'd
With me but roughly since I saw thee last.

COWPER.

THINE eyes are charm'd-thine earnest eyes— Thou image of the dead!

A spell within their sweetness lies,

A virtue thence is shed.

Oft in their meek blue light enshrined,
A blessing seems to be,

And sometimes there my wayward mind
A still reproach can see.

And sometimes Pity-soft and deep,
And quivering through a tear;
Even as if Love in Heaven could weep,
For Grief left drooping here.

And oh my spirit needs that balm,
Needs it 'midst fitful mirth;

And in the night-hour's haunted calm,

And by the lonely hearth.

Look on me thus, when hollow praise
Hath made the weary pine

For one true tone of other days,

One glance of love like thine!