The Infant-Burial

To and fro the bells are swinging, Heavily heaving to and fro; Sadly go the mourners, bringing Dust to join the dust below. Through the church-aisle, lighted dim, Chanted knells the ghostly hymn, Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet saeclum in favilla! Mother! flowers that bloom'd and perish'd, Strew'd thy path the bridal day; Now the bud thy grief has cherish'd, With the rest has pass'd away! Leaf that fadeth--bud that bloometh, Mingled there, must wait the day When the seed the grave entombeth Bursts to glory from the clay. Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet saeclum in favilla! Happy are the old that die, With the sins of life repented; Happier he whose parting sigh Breaks a heart, from sin prevented! Let the earth thine infant cover From the cares the living know; Happier than the guilty lover-- Memory is at rest below! Memory, like a fiend, shall follow, Night and day, the steps of Crime; Hark! the church-bell, dull and hollow, Shakes another sand from time! Through the church-aisle, lighted dim, Chanted knells the ghostly hymn; Hear it, False One, where thou fliest, Shriek to hear it when thou diest-- Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet saeclum in favilla!

X.

THE RETURN.

The cottage in the peaceful vale, The jasmine round the door, The hill still shelters from the gale, The brook still glides before.

Without the porch, one summer noon, The Hermit-dweller see! In musing silence bending down, The book upon his knee.

Who stands between thee and the sun?-- A cloud herself,--the Wand'ring One!-- A vacant sadness in the eyes, The mind a razed, defeatured scroll; The light is in the laughing skies, And darkness, Eva, in thy soul! The beacon shaken in the storm, Had struggled still to gleam above The last sad wreck of human love, Upon the dying child to shed One ray--extinguish'd with the dead: O'er earth and heaven then rush'd the night! A wandering dream, a mindless form-- A Star hurl'd headlong from its height, Guideless its course, and quench'd its light. Yet still the native instinct stirr'd The darkness of the breast-- She flies, as flies the wounded bird Unto the distant nest. O'er hill and waste, from land to land, Her heart the faithful instinct bore; And there, behold the Wanderer stand Beside her Childhood's Home once more!

XI.

LIGHT AND DARKNESS.

When earth is fair, and winds are still, When sunset gilds the western hill, Oft by the porch, with jasmine sweet, Or by the brook, with noiseless feet, Two silent forms are seen; So silent they--the place so lone-- They seem like souls when life is gone, That haunt where life has been: And his to watch, as in the past Her soul had watch'd his soul. Alas! her darkness waits the last, The grave the only goal! It is not what the leech can cure-- An erring chord, a jarring madness: A calm so deep, it must endure-- So deep, thou scarce canst call it sadness; A summer night, whose shadow falls On silent hearths in ruin'd halls. Yet, through the gloom, she seem'd to feel His presence like a happier air, Close by his side she loved to steal, As if no ill could harm her there! And when her looks his own would seek, Some memory seem'd to wake the sigh, Strive for kind words she could not speak, And bless him in the tearful eye. O sweet the jasmine's buds of snow, In mornings soft with May, And silver-clear the waves that flow To shoreless deeps away; But heavenward from the faithful heart A sweeter incense stole;-- The onward waves their source desert, But Soul returns to Soul!

THE FAIRY BRIDE.