Why art thou dead? My years are full of pain— The pain sublime of thought that has no word; And Truth and Beauty sing within my brain Diviner songs than men have ever heard. Wert thou but here, thine eye might read the strife— The solemn burthen of immortal song— And hear the music, that can find no lyre; For thou hast known a life, Lonely, amid the Poets’ mountain-throng— Whose cloudy snows concealed eternal fire! I could have told thee all the sylvan joy Of trackless woods; the meadows, far apart, Within whose fragrant grass, a lonely boy, I thought of God; the trumpet at my heart, When on bleak mountains roared the midnight storm And I was bathed in lightning, broad and grand:— Oh, more than all, with low and sacred breath And forehead flushing warm, I would have led thee through the summer land Of my young love, and past my dreams of Death! In thee, immortal Brother! had I found That voice of Earth for which my spirit pines; The awful speech of Rome’s sepulchral ground, The dusky hymn of Vallambrosa’s pines! From thee the noise of ocean would have taken A grand defiance round the moveless shores, And vocal grown the mountain’s silent head. Canst thou not still awaken Beneath the funeral cypress? Earth implores Thy presence for her son—why art thou dead? I do but rave—for it is better thus: Were once thy starry heart revealed to mine, In the twin-life which would encircle us, My soul would melt, my voice be lost in thine! Better to mask the agony of thought Which through weak human lips would make its way, ’Neath lone endurance, such as men must learn: The Poet’s soul is fraught With mightiest speech, when loneliest the day; And fires are brightest, that in midnight burn. * * * * * MARION’S SONG IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM. BY FRANCIS S. OSGOOD. Away with you, ye musty tomes! I’ll read no more this morning! The wildwood rose unlessoned grows— I’m off—your sermons scorning! I found a problem, yester eve, In wondering where the brook led, More pleasant far for me to solve Than any one in Euclid. I heard a bird sing, sweet and low, A truer lay than Tasso— A lay of love—ah! let me go, And fly from Learning’s lasso!