150

THE LAST TEAR.

AN ELEGY.

H, snatched away in beauty's bloom!
On thee shall press no ponderous tomb;

But on thy turf shall roses rear

Their leaves, the earliest of the year,

And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom.

And oft by yon blue, gushing stream,

Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head,

And feed deep thought with many a dream,

And lingering pause, and lightly tread ;-
Fond wretch! as if her step disturbed the dead!

Away! we know that tears are vain,

That Death nor heeds nor hears distress;
Will this unteach us to complain,

Or make one mourner weep the less?
And thou, who tell'st me to forget,

Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet.

BYRON.

THE LAST TEAR.

ITHOUT a friend to cheer his drooping heart,
An aged pilgrim in his death-sleep lay.
His feet had traversed far, in lonely march,
The crooked pathways of this desert world:
For those who, in the spring-time of his days,
Had hand in hand with him their course begun.

THE LAST TEAR.

Long since had fallen; and, all desolate,
Had left him mourning to pursue his way.

In dreamy mood he, on his lonely couch,

Lay pondering; when, touched by some mute spell,
The fountain of his heart, long sealed and dry,
Broke forth anew, and gave its latest tear.
Was it a tear of joy? or came it forth
In melancholy sadness, from the depths
Of memory's caverns in the inner soul;
Wherein are gathered stores of pleasures past,
Of long-lost happiness, and joy serene,
Mingling their brightness with the mists of years,
Like twilight radiance fading into gloom?
Was it, that, as the soul was verging fast
To the dark portals of the world unknown,
It turned to other years its inward glance,
And wept to think their joys were past recall?
Or came that tear in happiness-a tear
Of heavenly promise, glistening with the light
Of joy Elysian?

Looked the soul onward to its home of rest,
Where streams of gladness flow unceasingly,

With holy murmur, by the throne of God?
Dreamt it of happy meetings in the skies.

With those from whom nought but the hand of death
Could e'er have parted it—with those loved ones

Whose voice on earth was music soft and sweet,

And now, in heaven, is music sweeter still?

These doubts are hushed, for low and solemn sounds

Came from the lips of him who lay entranced. "Father of all," the pilgrim faintly sighed,

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152

THE LAST TEAR.

"I come to Thee--my pilgrimage is o'er ;
Beside the blissful Cross I lay me down,
In hope with Him to rise who died for me.
And, though a tear-drop dim my closing eye,
(Meet parting-sign from such a world as this,
Where tears have met us at the gates of life,
Nor in our after-steps have left us free),

'Tis all of joy,—a joy so exquisite

As if I felt Thine own benignant hand

Wiping that tear away!"

He said and now the darkness slips aside
Before the beckonings of angelic wings;

The tear-drop brightens like an opening heaven,
And shows the mirrored glories of the sky,
(For in the sad thus often lurks the true),
And, rising silently on viewless wings,
His spirit soared to immortality.

REV. A. L. SIMPSON.