Crosses himself, and sighs, alas!
With sorrowful voice to all who pass,—
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"
By day its voice is low and light; But in the silent dead of night, Distinct as a passing footstep's fall, It echoes along the vacant hall, Along the ceiling, along the floor, And seems to say, at each chamber-door, "Forever-never!
Through days of sorrow and of mirth, Through days of death and days of birth, Through every swift vicissitude
Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood, And as if, like God, it all things saw, It calmly repeats those words of awe,— 66 Forever-never!
In that mansion used to be Free-hearted Hospitality;
His great fires up the chimney roared; The stranger feasted at his board;
But, like the skeleton at the feast,
That warning timepiece never ceased, "Forever-never!
There groups of merry children played, There youths and maidens dreaming strayed; O precious hours! O golden prime!
And affluence of love and time!
Even as a miser counts his gold,
Those hours the ancient timepiece told,
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"
From that chamber, clothed in white,
The bride came forth on her wedding night;
There, in that silent room below, The dead lay in his shroud of snow; And in the hush that followed the prayer, Was heard the old clock on the stair,- "Forever-never!
All are scattered now and fled, Some are married, some are dead; And when I ask, with throbs of pain, "Ah! when shall they all meet again?" As in the days long since gone by, The ancient timepiece makes reply,- "Forever-never!
Never here, forever there, Where all parting, pain and care, And death and time shall disappear,- Forever there, but never here! The horologe of eternity Sayeth this incessantly,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
To him who, in the love of Nature, holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language: for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty; and she glides Into his darker musings with a mild And gentle sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart, Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around- Earth and her waters, and the depths of air- Comes a still voice,-Yet a few days and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again; And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements;
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet, not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone,-nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world,—with kings, The powerful of the earth,--the wise, the good, Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages, past, All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills, Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun; the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods; rivers that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks,
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,—
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Are shining on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings Of morning, traverse Barca's desert sands, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings,--yet the dead are there! And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down. In their last sleep,-the dead reign there alone! So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men—
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron and maid, And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man- Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side By those who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
William Cullen Bryant.
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary; It rains, and the wind is never weary; The vine still clings to the mouldering wall, But at every gust the dead leaves fall, And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past, But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast, And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun still shining; Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
THE BLUE AND THE GRAY.
[The women of Columbus, Mississippi, animated by nobler sentiments than are many of their sisters, have shown themselves impartial in their offerings made to the memory of the dead. They strewed flowers alike on the graves of the Confederate and of the National soldiers.]
By the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of iron have fled, Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver, Asleep are the ranks of the dead;— Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the one, the Blue;
Under the other, the Gray.
These in the robings of glory, Those in the gloom of defeat, All with the battle-blood gory, In the dusk of eternity meet;— Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day;- Under the laurel, the Blue;
Under the willow, the Gray.
From the silence of sorrowful hours The desolate mourners go,
Lovingly laden with flowers
Alike for the friend and the foe;—
« VorigeDoorgaan » |