ON A PICTURE. How may this little tablet feign the features of a face, Which o'er-informs with loveliness its proper share of space; Or human hands on ivory enable us to see The charms, that all must wonder at, thou work of gods, in thee. But yet, methinks, that sunny smile familiar stories tells, And I should know those placid eyes, two shaded crystal wells; Nor can my soul, the limner's art attesting with a sigh, Forget the blood that deck'd thy cheek, as rosy clouds the sky. They could not semble what thou art, more excellent than fair, As soft as sleep or pity is, and pure as mountain air; But here are common, earthly hues, to such an aspect wrought, That none, save thine, can seem so like the beautiful of thought. The song I sing, thy likeness like, is painful mimicry Of something better, which is now a memory to me, Who have upon life's frozen sea just reach'd the icy spot, Where men's magnetic feelings show their guiding task forgot. The sportive hopes that used to chase their shifting shadows on, Like children playing in the sun, are gone—for ever gone; 198 ON A PICTURE. And on a careless, sullen peace, my double-fronted mind, Like Janus, when his gates are shut, looks forward and behind. Apollo placed his harp, of old, awhile upon a stone, Which has resounded since, when struck, a breaking harp string's tone; And thus my heart, though wholly now from earthly softness free, If touch'd, will yield the music yet, it first received of thee. THE CLOSE OF AUTUMN. BY WILLIAM C. BRYANT. THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds and naked woods and meadows brown and sere. 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 sprung 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's glow; But on the hill the golden rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sunflower 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 hazy 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. 200 THE CLOSE OF AUTUMN. In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf, And we wept that one so lovely should have a lot 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. LINES ON A SKULL. BEHOLD this ruin!-'twas a skull, This narrow cell was life's retreat— Beneath this mouldering canopy But through the dew of kindness beam'd, Here, in this silent cavern hung The ready swift and tuneful tongue; And where it could not praise, was chain'd- Yet gentle concord never broke That tuneful tongue shall plead for thee Say, did these fingers delve the mine, Avails it, whether bare or shod MY BIRTHDAY. BY T. MOORE. 'My birthday '-what a different sound |