THE DEAD.

A DIRGE.

I LOVE the dead!

The precious spirits gone before, And waiting on that peaceful shore To meet with welcome looks

and kiss me yet once more.

I love the dead!

And fondly doth my fancy paint

Each dear one, wash'd from earthly taint, By patience and by hope

made a most gentle saint.

O glorious dead!

Without one spot upon the dress

Of your ethereal loveliness,

Ye linger round me still

with earnest will to bless.

Enfranchised dead!

Each fault and failing left behind

And nothing now to chill or bind, How gloriously ye reign

in majesty of mind!

O royal dead!

The resting, free, unfettered dead,
The yearning, conscious, holy dead,

The hoping, waiting, calm,

the happy, changeless dead!

I love the dead!

And well forget their little ill,
Eager to bask my memory still

In all their best of words

and deeds and ways and will.

I bless the dead!

Their good, half choked by this world's weeds, Is blooming now in heavenly meads,

And ripening golden fruit,

of all those early seeds.

I trust the dead!

They understand me frankly now,

There are no clouds on heart or brow, But spirit, reading spirit,

answereth glow for glow.

I praise the dead!

All their tears are wiped away,

Their darkness turned to perfect day,— How blessed are the dead,

how beautiful be they!

O gracious dead!

That watch me from your paradise

With happy tender starlike eyes,

Let your sweet influence rain

me blessings from the skies.

Yet, helpless dead,

Vainly my yearning nature dares

Such unpremeditated prayers;

All vain it were for them,

as even for me their's.

Immortal dead!

Ye in your lot are fixed as fate,

And man or angel is too late

To beckon back by prayer

one change upon your state.

O, godlike dead,

Ye that do rest, like Noah's dove, Fearless I leave you to the love Of him who gave you peace

to bear with you above!

And ye, the dead

Godless on earth, and gone astray,

Alas, your hour is past away, The Judge is just; for you

it now were sin to pray.

Still, all ye dead,

First may be last and last be first,

Charity counteth no man curst,

But hopeth still in Him

whose love would save the worst.

Therefore, ye dead,

I love you, be ye good or ill,

For God, our God, doth love me still,

And you He loved on earth

with love that naught could chuil.

And some, just dead,

To me on earth most deeply dear,

Who loved and nursed and blest me here,

I love you with a love

that casteth out all fear.

Come near me, Dead!

In spirit come to me, and kiss,
No!-I must wait awhile for this

A few, few years or days

and I too feed on bliss!

TO AMERICA:

I.

COLUMBIA, child of Britain, noblest child,

-

I praise the growing lustre of thy worth,
And fain would see thy great heart reconcil'd
To love the mother of so blest a birth:
For we are one, Columbia! still the same
In lineage, language, laws, and ancient fame,
The natural nobility of earth:

Yes, we are one; the glorious days of yore,
When dear old England earn'd her storied name,
Are thine as well as ours for evermore;

And thou hast rights in Milton, ev'n as we,

Thou too canst claim "sweet Shakspeare's wood-notes wild,"-
And chiefest, brother, we are both made free
Of one Religion, pure and undefil'd!

II.

I blame thee not, as other some have blam'd, -
The high-born heir had grown to man's estate,
I mock thee not as some who should be shamed,
Nor ferret out thy faults with envious hate;
Far otherwise, by generous love inflamed,
Patriot, I praise my country's foreign son,
Rejoicing in the blaze of good and great

That diadems thy head! - go on, go on,
Young Hercules, thus travelling in might,
Boy-Plato, filling all the west with light.

Thou new Themistocles for enterprise,

Go on and prosper, Acolyte of fate!

And, precious child, dear Ephraim, turn those eyes, For thee thy Mother's yearning heart doth wait.

III.

Let aged Britain claim the classic Past,

A shining track of bright and mighty deeds, For thee I prophesy the Future vast

Whereof the Present sows its giant seeds:
Corruption and decay come thick and fast

O'er poor old England; yet a few dark years
And we must die as nations died of yore!
But, in the millions of thy teeming shore,
Thy patriots, sages, warriors, saints, and seers,
We live again, Columbia! yea, once more
Unto a thousand generations live,

The mother in the child; to all the West
Through Thee shall We earth's choicest blessings give,
Ev'n as our Orient world in Us is blest.

IV.

Thou noble scion of an ancient root,

Born of the forest-king! spread forth, spread forth, —
High to the stars thy tender leaflets shoot,
Deep dig thy fibres round the ribs of earth!

From sea to sea, from South to icy North,

It must ere long be thine, through good or ill, To stretch thy sinewy boughs: Go, wondrous child! The glories of thy destiny fulfil;

Remember then thy mother in her age,

Shelter her in the tempest, warring wild,

Stand thou with us when all the nations rage

So furiously together! we are one:

And, through all time, the calm historic page Shall tell of Britain blest in thee her son.