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“Over that solemn pageant mute and dark,
Where in the grave we laid to rest
Heaven’s latest, not least welcome guest,
What didst thou on the wing, thou jocund lark!
Hovering in unrebuked glee,
And carolling above that mournful company?
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“O thou light-loving and melodious bird,
At every sad and solemn fall
Of mine own voice, each interval
In the soul-elevating prayer, I heard
Thy quivering descant full and clear—
Discord not inharmonious to the ear!
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“We laid her there, the
Minstrel’s darling child.
Seem’d it then meet that, borne away
From the close city’s dubious day,
Her dirge should be thy native woodnote wild;
Nursed upon nature’s lap, her sleep
Should be where birds may sing, and dewy flowerets weep?
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“Ascendedst thou, air-wandering messenger!
Above us slowly lingering yet,
To bear our deep, our mute regret;
To waft upon thy faithful wing to her
The husband’s
fondest last farewell,
Love’s final parting pang, the unspoke, the unspeakable?
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| CONCLUSION. | 421 |
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“Or didst thou rather chide with thy blithe voice
Our selfish grief that would delay
Her passage to a brighter day;
Bidding us mourn no longer, but rejoice
That it hath heavenward flown like thee,
That spirit from this cold world of sin and sorrow free?
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“I watched thee, lessening, lessening to the sight,
Still faint and fainter winnowing
The sunshine with thy dwindling wing,
A speck, a movement in the ruffled light,
Till thou wert melted in the sky,
An undistinguished part of the bright infinity.
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“Meet emblem of that lightsome spirit thou!
That still wherever it might come,
Shed sunshine o’er that happy home.
Her task of kindliness and gladness now
Absolved, with the element above
Hath mingled, and become pure light, pure joy, pure love.”
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