page 19

In Memoriam.

T. B.

Oh, garden of my heart how soon
Thy beauties pine away and die,
One hour, in pride of noon,
They kiss the kindling sky;
But ere the bud is bloom
There comes a chilling gloom,
And on the dull, cold earth they withered lie.

Another rose is gone that made
My life to me more sweet:
Another heart is still'd that beat
Responsive to mine own.
And now I walk alone
With dull and desolate feet;
And bare and bleak the prospect seems.
And mellow moons and sunny gleams
Mock with untimely mirth a heart dismayed.

Oh, garden of my heart, each leaf
Dies not alone, but takes
A something it forsakes—
So life ebbs slowly out with grief;
And so each stroke, we know,
Falls with more muffled blow.
Until at last we breathe relief,
And rest, where pure and meek the daisies grow.

Oh, garden of my heart, how scant
Thy leaves and perfumed bloom—
Can all thy sunny days but grant
This solitary gloom;
And must we be content,
Glad life and beauty spent,
A deep forgetfulness to seek?
A peace, our withered loves bespeak—
A silence, sweet and seeling, in the tomb.

Oh, garden of my heart, though dead
The rose, its fragance still will cling,
And tender recollections bring
To deify the splendour fled;
And when the vagrant air
Shall waft it everywhere.
And it has faded from our sense,
Yet still we know its influence
Still steals abroad, imperishably fair.

Oh, garden of my heart, not vain
His gentle bloom, his sudden chill,
Though to our sight the gain
Seem loss ineffable.
But who shall fight with Might,
Or curse the Hands that smite,
Sure that in great and small
One purpose works in all—
One goal to reach, one blinding veil of light.