JAMES OTIS ROCKWELL was born in Connecticut in 1807, and died in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1831.
SEARCHER of gold, whose days and nights
All waste away in anxious care,
Estranged from all of life's delights,
Unlearn'd in all that is most fair-
Who sailest not with easy glide,
But delvest in the depths of tide,
And strugglest in the foam;
O! come and view this land of graves,
Death's northern sea of frozen waves,
And mark thee out thy home.
Lover of woman, whose sad heart
Wastes like a fountain in the sun,
Clings most, where most its pain does start,
Dies by the light it lives upon;
Come to the land of graves; for here
Are beauty's smile and beauty's tear,
Gather'd in holy trust;
Here slumber forms as fair as those
Whose cheeks, now living, shame the rose,
Their glory turn'd to dust.
Lover of fame, whose foolish thought
Steals onward o'er the wave of time,
Tell me, what goodness hath it brought,
Atoning for that restless crime?
The spirit-mansion desolate,
And open to the storms of fate,
The absent soul in fear;
Bring home thy thoughts, and come with me,
And see where all thy pride must be:
Searcher of fame, look here!
And, warrior, thou with snowy plume,
That goest to the bugle's call,
Come and look down; this lonely tomb
Shall hold thee and thy glories all:
The haughty brow, the manly frame,
The daring deeds, the sounding fame,
Are trophies but for death!
And millions who have toil'd like thee,
Are stay'd, and here they sleep; and see,
Does glory lend them breath?
WIFE, who in thy deep devotion
Puttest up a prayer for one
Sailing on the stormy ocean,
Hope no more-his course is done.
Dream not, when upon thy pillow,
That he slumbers by thy side;
For his corse beneath the billow
Heaveth with the restless tide.
Children, who, as sweet flowers growing,
Laugh amid the sorrowing rains,
Know ye many clouds are throwing
Shadows on your sire's remains?
Where the hoarse, gray surge is rolling
With a mountain's motion on,
Dream ye that its voice is tolling
For your father lost and gone?
When the sun look'd on the water,
As a hero on his grave,
Tinging with the hue of slaughter
Every blue and leaping wave,
Under the majestic ocean,
Where the giant current roll'd,
Slept thy sire, without emotion,
Sweetly by beam of gold;
And the silent sunbeams slanted,
Wavering through the crystal deep,
Till their wonted splendours haunted
Those shut eyelids in their sleep.
Sands, like crumbled silver gleaming,
Sparkled through his raven hair;
But the sleep that knows no dreaming
Bound him in its silence there.
So we left him; and to tell thee
Of our sorrow and thine own,
Of the wo that then befell thee,
Come we weary and alone.
That thine eye is quickly shaded, That thy heart-blood wildly flows, That thy cheek's clear hue is faded, Are the fruits of these new woes.
Children, whose meek eyes, inquiring,
Linger on your mother's face-
Know ye that she is expiring,
That ye are an orphan race?
GOD be with you on the morrow,
Father, mother-both no more;
One within a grave of sorrow,
One upon the ocean's floor!
MR. LONGFELLOW was born in Portland, in 1807, and is now professor of the French and Spanish languages in Harvard University. He has published "Outre Mer, a Pilgrimage beyond the Sea," "Hyperion," " The Spanish Student," and two volumes of ballads and other poems.
TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
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