Go, then; and yet I bid thee not repair, Thy gathered sweets to shed, Where pine and willow, in the evening air, Sigh o'er the buried dead. Pass on to homes where cheerful voices sound, And cheerful looks are cast, And where thou wakest, in thine airy round, No sorrow of the past. Refresh the languid student pausing o'er The learned page apart, And he shall turn to con his task once more With an encouraged heart. Bear thou a promise, from the fragrant sward, To him who tills the land, Of springing harvests that shall yet reward The labors of his hand. And whisper, everywhere, that Earth renews Her beautiful array, Amid the darkness and the gathering dews, For the return of day. OCTOBER, 1866. 'Twas when the earth in summer glory lay, We bore thee to thy grave; a sudden cloud Had shed its shower and passed, and every spray And tender herb with pearly moisture bowed. How laughed the fields, and how, before our door, Danced the bright waters!--from his perch on high The hang-bird sang his ditty o'er and o'er, And the song-sparrow from the shrubberies nigh. Yet was the home where thou wert lying dead Mournfully still, save when, at times, was heard, From room to room, some softly-moving tread, Or murmur of some softly-uttered word. Feared they to break thy slumber? As we threw A look on that bright bay and glorious shore, Our hearts were wrung with anguish, for we knew Those sleeping eyes would look on them no more. Autumn is here; we cull his lingering flowers And bring them to the spot where thou art laid; The late-born offspring of his balmier hours, Spared by the frost, upon thy grave to fade. The sweet calm sunshine of October, now Warms the low spot; upon its grassy mould The purple oak-leaf falls; the birchen bough Drops its bright spoil like arrow-heads of gold. And gorgeous as the morn, a tall array Of woodland shelters the smooth fields around; And guarded by its headlands, far away Sail-spotted, blue and lake-like, sleeps the sound. I gaze in sadness; it delights me not To look on beauty which thou canst not see; And, wert thou by my side, the dreariest spot Were, oh, how far more beautiful to me! In what fair region dost thou now abide? Hath God, in the transparent deeps of space, Through which the planets in their journey glide, Prepared, for souls like thine, a dwelling-place? Fields of unwithering bloom, to mortal eye Invisible, though mortal eye were near, Musical groves, and bright streams murmuring by, Heard only by the spiritual ear? Nay, let us deem that thou dost not withdraw From the dear places where thy lot was cast, And where thy heart, in love's most holy law, Was schooled by all the memories of the past.