Was she vain? humble? foolish? wise?
Rich? poor? coy? bold? quite dull? or witty? O were you wicked with your eyes,
A plague to men? I hope not, Kitty.
Did children make her smile or sigh,
A blessed or afflicted mother?
Did she at weddings laugh? or try
By death-beds, sobs in vain to smother?
At her grand-children's christenings, eyes,
Half tears-half laughter, did she show now?
Or weep their flight to Paradise
From cradles here? ah, who can know now!
Yet still my fancy will go on
About this long-gone Kitty dreaming,
She freed from all we think upon
Of worldly toils and cares and scheming;
Whatever she was, here her rest,
How pleasantly these green elms shade it!
How calm and throbless is her breast,
However wild or sad life made it!
As here I see her lie, forgot
By all who used to hate or love her,
By all but she who makes this spot
So sweet with thymy turf above her,
I cannot come to picture her
But as a sweet one life could render
With smiles to heaven,-one fit to stir
In me but thoughts serene and tender.
So I think of her-think her fair,
And, on the painted sunshine gazing,
See laughing eyes and golden hair,
All beauty that one should be praising;
A happy girlish wife, before
My sight she lives, to fancy giving
Content more calm-more sweet, since more Undimmed by fears-than do the living.
For we are things that know no peace,
Poor slaves of care, and toil and pleasure,
Of wants and hopes that never cease;
For calm content, we have no leisure;
But hers no more are sin and death,
All we must fear-with which we've striven;
Earth's must be still unquiet breath;
She breathes but Heaven's, we trust-forgiven.
All they who knew her, too, have passed
From time; all broken heart-ties mended.
They have rejoin'd her where at last
All tears are dried, all sorrows ended;
What matters then that here her name
Alone is written! she is faring
As well as most who cared for fame,
For whom now not a soul is caring.
Ah, you who here are writing this,
And dream, perhaps, in future story
Your name may live-who, catch or miss,
Snatch at a little gleam of glory,
Is it so much that men should know
Your words years hence? nay, man, breathe calmer!
Will you not sleep as well, below
The grass, forgot, like "Kitty Palmer ?”
[I conclude this Series of "Select Readings" with a "Hymn" from one whose "Seasons" ever have been, and will be, loved and admired by all the world.-Editor.]
THESE, as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense and every heart is joy.
Then comes thy glory in the Summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year:
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks,
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves in hollow whispering gales.
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter, awful thou! with clouds and storms
Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled,
Majestic darkness! On the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, thou bidd'st the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep-felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined;
Shade unperceived, so softening into shade;
And all so forming a harmonious whole,
That, as they succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with rude unconscious gaze,
Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres ;
Works in the secret deep; shoots steaming thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth,
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend! join every living soul
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join; and ardent raise
One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,
Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes.
Oh, talk of Him in solitary glooms,
Where o'er the rock the scarcely waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.
And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,
Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven
The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills;
And let me catch it as I muse along.
Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,
Sound His stupendous praise, whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids you roaring fall.
So roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.
Ye forests, bend; ye harvests, wave to Him;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! blest image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,
From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On nature write with every beam His praise.
The thunder rolls: be hush'd the prostrate world,
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