THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

BY WILLIAM C. BRYANT.

THE melancholy days are come,
The saddest of the year,

Of wailing winds, and naked woods,
And meadows brown and sear.
Heap'd in the hollows of the grove,
The wither'd leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust,
And to the rabbit's tread.

The robin and the wren are flown,
And from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow,
Through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers,
That lately sprang and stood

In brighter light and softer airs,
A beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves;

The gentle race of flowers

Are lying in their lowly beds,

With the fair and good of ours.

The rain is falling where they lie,
But the cold November rain
Calls not from out the gloomy earth,

The lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet,

They perish'd long ago,

And the brier-rose and the orchis died,

Amid the summer glow;

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

But on the hill the golden-rod,

And the aster in the wood,

And the yellow sun-flower by the brook
In autumn beauty stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven,
As falls the plague on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone,
From upland glade and glen.

And now, when comes the calm, mild day,
As still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee
From out their winter home;

When the sound of dropping nuts is heard,
Though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light

The waters of the rill,

The south wind searches for the flowers

Whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood

And by the stream no more.

And then I think of one who in
Her youthful beauty died,

The fair, meek blossom that grew up
And faded by my side;

In the cold, moist earth we laid her,
When the forest cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely
Should have a life so brief:
Yet not unmeet it was that one,

Like that young friend of ours,

So gentle and so beautiful,

Should perish with the flowers.

147

"PASS ON, RELENTLESS WORLD."

BY GEORGE LUNT.

SWIFTER and Swifter, day by day,
Down Time's unquiet current hurl❜d,
Thou passest on thy restless way,
Tumultuous and unstable world!
Thou passest on! Time hath not seen
Delay upon thy hurried path;

And prayers and tears alike have been
In vain to stay thy course of wrath!

Thou passest on, and with thee go

The loves of youth, the cares of age;
And smiles and tears, and joy and woe,
Are on thy history's troubled page!
There, every day, like yesterday,

Writes hopes that end in mockery;
But who shall tear the veil away
Before the abyss of things to be?

Thou passest on, and at thy side,

Even as a shade, Oblivion treads,
And o'er the dreams of human pride
His misty shroud for ever spreads;
Where all thine iron hand hath traced
Upon that gloomy scroll to-day,
With records ages since effaced,-
Like them shall live, like them decay.

"PASS ON, RELENTLESS WORLD."

Thou passest on, with thee the vain,

Who sport upon thy flaunting blaze, Pride, framed of dust and folly's train, Who court thy love, and run thy ways: But thou and I,-and be it so,

Press onward to eternity;

Yet not together let us go

To that deep-voiced but shoreless sea.

Thou hast thy friends,-I would have mine;
Thou hast thy thoughts,-leave me my own:
I kneel not at thy gilded shrine,

I bow not at thy slavish throne;
I see them pass without a sigh,-

They wake no swelling raptures now,
The fierce delights that fire thine eye,
The triumphs of thy haughty brow.

Pass on, relentless world! I grieve
No more for all that thou hast riven;
Pass on, in God's name, only leave

The things thou never yet hast given-
A heart at ease, a mind at home,
Affections fix'd above thy sway,
Faith set upon a world to come,
And patience through life's little day.

13*

149

OLD IRONSIDES.*

BY OLIVER W. HOLMES.

Ay, tear her tatter'd ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;

Beneath it rung the battle-shout,

And burst the cannon's roar;

The meteor of the ocean air

Shall sweep the clouds no more!

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquish'd foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,

No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquer'd knee;
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

O, better that her shatter'd hulk

Should sink beneath the wave;

Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,

Set every threadbare sail,

And give her to the god of storms,

The lightning and the gale!

* Written when it was proposed to break up the frigate Constitu

tion, as unfit for service.