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Then falls the blessed boon of eventide;
The fresh'ning dew a drooping earth restores;
The loveliest moments with the shadows glide;
The mortal soul in loftiest ether soars.
Now may fond Retrospection reign supreme;
Dear mem'ries surge amid the fading light;
Till the first star's uncertain, twinkling beam
Leads on th'unnumbered glories of the night.
Chester Pierce Munroe
The Bond Invincible
By David H. Whittier
The laws of infinite Goodness are not always manifested in those accustomed ways which we deem so inevitable, nor are their noblest operations always to be sought amidst those scenes of splendour where the tide of life flows with greatest strength and swiftness. Their deepest truths are ofttimes set forth among the humblest of men; for verily, they are no respecters of persons.
In a little town there once lived a youth and a maid who bore a mutual affection so strange and so intense, that not only did their neighbours marvel, but they themselves could scarce comprehend its singular and engrossing nature. From infancy the two had grown up side by side; every day drawing closer together, and becoming more and more occupied with thoughts of each other, till at length their fondness excluded many seemingly more important, and certainly more material needs and interests. Each was widely noted for a certain quiet goodness of heart, and each deserved the reputation; for all their thoughts and acts were pure beyond the common standards of mankind. They lived only for each other, and their thoughts were only of each other.
But one day a malignant demon interfered, where all before had been in the hands of God. The maid, stricken with a malady which defied the efforts of rural healers, declined with fatal rapidity toward the valley of shadows. Shortly before the end her lover reached her side, sinking by the deathbed with a silent apparent calm which revealed but little the inward fear and utter vacancy brought to his sensitive spirit by the dire calamity. He held her in his arms as her soul prepared to leave him, and as she crossed the portal of this world she whispered of her devotion, vowing that nothing in the land beyond might have power to divide them, or to draw them farther apart than they had ever been. He kissed her lips for the last time, and then the shadow fell, leaving him alone, utterly alone in space; for the world of men had never been with him, and he had lost the only world that was truly his.
They laid the maiden to rest beneath the green grasses of the hillside, whilst the youth wandered aimlessly through the village
