Ding-dong ding-dong! Merry, merry go the bells, Swelling in the nightly gale, The sentry ghost, It keeps its post, And soon, and soon our sports must fail: But let us trip the nightly ground, While the merry, merry bells ring round. Hark! hark! the death-watch ticks: Our dance is done, Our race is run, And we must lie at the alder's feet! Ding-dong! ding-dong! Merry, merry go the bells, Swinging o'er the weltering wave! Our deathbeds bleak, Where the green sod grows upon the grave. The Goddess of Consumption. Come, Melancholy, sister mine! Cold the dews, and chill the night; Come from thy dreary shrine! The wan moon climbs the heavenly hight, Troops of squalid specters play, And the dying mortal's groan Startles the Night on her dusky throne. Come, come, sister mine! Gliding on the pale moonshine: We'll ride at ease, On the tainted breeze, And, oh! our sport will be divine. The Goddess of Melancholy. Sister, from my dark abode, Where nests the raven, sits the toad, Hither I come, at thy command: Sister, sister, join thy hand! I will smooth the way for thee, Come, let us speed our way Where the troops of specters play; Lay our snares, and spread our tether! O'er many a grave Where youth and beauty sleep together. Consumption. Come, let us speed our way! Join our hands, and spread our tether! Thou shalt smooth the way for me; O'er many a grave Where youth and beauty sleep together. Melancholy. Hist! sister, hist! who comes here? By that blue eye's languid glare, By her skin and by her hair; She is mine, And she is thine; Now the deadliest draught prepare. Consumption. In the dismal night-air dressed, I will creep into her breast! Flush her cheek, and bleach her skin, And feed on the vital fire within. When they sparkle most, she dies! Comfort she will breathe in death! Father, do not strive to save her : The coffin must be her bridal bed, Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, That lately sprung and stood In brighter light and softer airs, A beauteous sisterhood? The gentle race of flowers With the fair and good of ours. The wall-flower and the violet, They perished long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchis died Amid the summer's glow; But on the hill, the golden rod, And the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven, And the brightness of their smile was gone And now, when comes the calm, mild day. To call the squirrel and the bee When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, The waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers Whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood And by the stream no more. And then I think of one, who in The fair, meek blossom that grew up In the cold, moist earth we laid her, Should perish with the flowers. W. C. BRYANT. LESSON CCXIII. AUTUMN FLOWERS. THOSE few, pale, autumn flowers, Than all that went before, And why? They are the last! The last! the last! the last! How many thoughts are stirred ! Pale flowers! pale, perishing flowers! Last hours with parting dear ones, Last words half uttered, Last looks of dying friends. Who would but fain compress The last day spent with one Must leave us, and for aye! Oh, precious, precious moments! Pale flowers! pale, perishing flowers! I leave the summer rose For younger, blither brows: Tell me of change and death. MISS C. BowWLES. LESSON CCXIV. SPIRIT OF THE ROSE-BUSH. The Moss-Rose. THE angel that nurses the flowers, and sprinkles the dew upon them in the stilly night, was slumbering, one spring day, |