In which the hand of Nature hath engraved Away, and vanish into nothing. For a Tomb, in the Burial Ground of Marseilles, erected by a Mother to her Daughter, consisting of a broken Column, with these words" Une tendre mére à sa fille Amélie!" AH! thus, my child, thy life was snapped, That youth hath not death's dart escaped, I plant thee as a budding Rose, Thy flower in fields etherial blows, Thy leaves Heaven's dews are laving. IV. THE CLOSING SCENE. BURIAL AT SEA. BY AN AMERICAN GENTLEMAN 26. FROM his room to the deck they brought him drest With his boots, and stock, and garments on, For he wished a child might come and lay Then they wrapped his corse in the tarry sheet, And prepared him to seek the depths below, No steeds with their nodding plumes were here, The dead to sleep with his kindred clay. But the little group, a silent few, His companions, mixed with the hardy crew, Stood thoughtful around till a prayer was said O'er the corse of the deaf, unconscious dead. Then they bore his remains to the vessel's side, And committed them safe to the dark blue tide: One sullen plunge-and the scene is o'er The sea rolled on as it rolled before. In that classical sea, whose azure vies With the green of its shore, and the blue of its skies, In some pearly cave, in some coral cell, As if shrined in the pomp of Parian tombs, Where the east and the south breathe their rich perfumes. Nor forgotten shall be the humblest one, Though he sleep in the watery waste alone, When the Trump of the Angel sounds with dread, And the Sea, like the Earth, gives up his dead. V. BURIAL ON LAND. LIVING he passed the devouring deep, Soothed his soul to rest, no bell was rung: No pomp paraded his "coffined bier :" But stranger-friends, though they shed no tear, "I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, From henceforth blessed are they which die in the Lord: even so saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labours." Rev. xiv. 13. Burial Service. |