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Show 20 Tll~ LID.EUT\: D.EI,L. Move hiE lips, but not to pray. Who shall roll the stone away 1 Here was laid this spirit dead By Despair, his lady wed. Foe thrice-sworn to care and strife, Through the summer of hiE life, Like a lightsome bird roved he From bank to bank and tree to tree, Nor timely learne<l to wing his flight Where reigns th' eternal Life and Light. Ne'er his joys' flush baste could brook The hindrance of one filial look To tho bending heaven above, In whose warm and fostering love His merry world was lapped and cherished ; Fell the leaves, and summer perished. Quaking sapling, shmb, and tree, In winter's thin white livery, 'fwinkled back the kindly light, Pointing to its birth-place bright. J>t;TIIA j OR, A SONG 0~' 1'111-: D.ES.EUT. But his fixed and earthward eye Saw hope's blossoms fruitless die. While tho icc-clad cypress well Of those buried hopes the knell ~rolled with cold and crystal clank, Stiffened, deaf, and blind he sank j And a mouud of scaling snows O'er his heavy tomb·stonc rose. Sun thaws not these drifls so gray. Who shall roll the stone away 1 Mammon reared this gilded stone O'er a well-beloved son. For him your bitterest tears be shed, The neighbor's soul, the patriot's, dead, Who once, without two mites to give, Would fast to bid the famished live, Or cloakless brave the winter's wrack, To thatch the aged beggar's back, And tear the bribing merchant's note, And keep unsoiled his honest vote ! 21 |