Page:Pleasant Memories.pdf/249

His dreary trophies in a maze of flowers,
And makes his tombs like temples, or a home
So sweet to love, that grief doth fleet away.
I saw a mother mourning. The fair tomb
Was like a little chapel, hung with wreath,
And crucifix. And there she spread the toys
That her lost babe had loved, as if she found
A solace in the memory of its sports.
Tears flowed like pearl-drops, yet without the pang
That wrings and rends the heart-strings. It would seem
A tender sorrow, scarce of anguish born,
So much the influence of surrounding charms
Did mitigate it.
                     Mid the various groups
That visited the dead, I marked the form
Of a young female winding through the shades.
Just at that point she seemed, where childhood melts
But half away, like snows that feel the sun,
Yet shrinking closer to their shaded nook,
Delay to swell the sparkling stream of youth.
She had put off her sabots at the gate,
Heavy with clay, and to a new-made grave
Hasted alone. Upon its wooden cross
She placed her chaplet, and with whispering lips,
Perchance in prayer, perchance in converse low
With the loved slumberer, knelt, and strewed the seeds
Of flowers among the mould. A shining mass