Ye cannot! something chokes the grate And clogs the air within its flues, And runners from the entrance-gate Come chill with evil news: The bars are broken ope! Ha! he has scaled the inner wall! But fight him still, from hall to hall; While life remains, there’s hope. Too late! the very frame is dust, The locks and trammels fall apart; He reaches, scornful of their trust, The portals of the heart. Ay, take the citadel! But where, grim Conqueror, is thy prey? In vain thou’lt search each secret way, Its flight is hidden well. We yield thee, for thy paltry spoils, This shell, this ruin thou hast made; Its tenant has escaped thy toils, Though they were darkly laid. Even now, immortal, pure, It gains a house not made with hands, A refuge in serener lands, A heritage secure. GEORGE ARNOLD. GREENWOOD, NOVEMBER 13, 1865. We stood around the dreamless form Whose strength was so untimely shaken, Whose sleep not all our love could warm, Nor any dearest voice awaken; And while the Autumn breathed her sighs, And dropped a thousand leafy glories, And all the pathways, and the skies, Were mindful of his songs and stories, Nor failed to wear the mingled hues He loved, and knew so well to render, But wooed,—alas, in vain!—their Muse For one more tuneful lay and tender, We paused awhile,—the gathered few Who came, in longing, not in duty,— With eyes that full of weeping grew, To look their last upon his beauty. Death would not rudely rob that face, Nor dim its fine Arcadian brightness, But gave the lines a clearer grace, And sleep’s repose, and marble’s whiteness. And, gazing there on him so young, We thought of all his ended mission, The broken links, the songs unsung, The love that found no ripe fruition; Till last the old, old question came To hearts that beat with life around him, Why Death, with downward torch aflame, Had searched our number till he found him? Why passed the one who poorly knows, That blithesome spell for either fortune, Or mocked with lingering menace those Whose pains the final thrust importune; Or left the toiling ones who bear The crowd’s neglect, the want that presses, The woes no human soul can share, Nor look, nor spoken word, confesses. And from the earth no answer came, The forest wore a stillness deeper, The sky and lake smiled on the same, And voiceless as the silent sleeper. And so we turned ourselves away, By earth and air and water chidden, And left him with them, where he lay, A sharer of their secret hidden. And each the staff and shell again Took up, and marched with memories haunted; But henceforth, in our pilgrim-strain, We’ll miss a voice that sweetly chaunted! THE SAD BRIDAL.