II.

When last year took her mournful flight, With all her train of wo and ill, As pale processions sweep at night Across some lonesome burial hill-- My soul with sorrow for its mate, And bowed with unrequited wrong, Stood knocking at the starry gate Of the wild wondrous realm of song.

For hope from my poor hert was gone, With all the sheltering peace it gave, And a dim twilight, stealing on, Foretold the night-time of the grave. Past is that time of dim unrest, Hope reillumes its faded track, And the soft hand of love has prest Death's deep and awful shadows back.

A year agone, when wildly shrill The wind sat singing on this bough, The churchyard on the neighboring hill Had not so many graves as now. When the May-morn, with hand of light, The clouds above her bosom drew, And o'er the blue, cold steeps of night Went treading out the stars like dew--

One, whose dear joy it had been ours Two little summer times to keep, Folded his white hands from the flowers, And, softly smiling, fell asleep. And when the northern light streamed cold Across October's moaning blast, One whose brief tarriance was foretold All the sweet summer that was past,

Meekly unlocked from her young arms The scarcely faded bridal crown, And in death's fearful night of storms The dim day of her life went down. While still beneath the golden hours, That like a roof the woods o'erspread, Among the few and faded flowers, Musing this idle rhyme I tread.

Above yon reach of level mist Bright shines the cross-crowned spire afar, As in the sky's clear amethyst The splendor of some steadfast star. And still beneath its steady light The waves of time heave to and fro, From night to day, from day to night, As the dim seasons come and go.

Some eager for ambition's strife, Some to love's banquet hurrying on, Like pilgrims on the hills of life We cross each other, and are gone. But though our lives are little drops, Welled from the infinite fount above, Our deaths are but the mystic stops In the great melody of love.