A Few Days After
This Joyful Event, I Heard A Great Bustle In The Room Adjoining To
Mine, And Old Dolly Rowe, My Cornish Nurse, Informed Me That It Was
Occasioned By The People Who Came To Attend The Funeral Of Phoebe
R - -.
She only survived the removal of the family a week; and at her
own request had been brought all the way from the - - lake plains to
be interred in the burying ground on the hill which overlooked the
stream.
As I lay upon my pillow I could distinctly see the spot, and mark
the long funeral procession, as it wound along the banks of the
brook. It was a solemn and imposing spectacle, that humble funeral.
When the waggons reached the rude enclosure, the coffin was
carefully lifted to the ground, the door in the lid opened, and
old and young approached, one after another, to take a last look
at the dead, before consigning her to the oblivion of the grave.
Poor Phoebe! Gentle child, of coarse, unfeeling parents, few shed
more sincerely a tear for thy early fate than the stranger whom they
hated and despised. Often have I stood beside that humble mound,
when the song of the lark was above me, and the bee murmuring at my
feet, and thought that it was well for thee that God opened the eyes
of thy soul, and called thee out of the darkness of ignorance and
sin to glory in His marvellous light. Sixteen years have passed away
since I heard anything of the family, or what had become of them,
when I was told by a neighbour of theirs, whom I accidentally met
last winter, that the old woman, who now nearly numbers a hundred
years, is still living, and inhabits a corner of her son's barn, as
she still quarrels too much with his wife to reside with Joe; that
the girls are all married and gone; and that Joe himself, although
he does not know a letter, has commenced travelling preacher. After
this, who can doubt the existence of miracles in the nineteenth
century?
THE FAITHFUL HEART THAT LOVES THEE STILL
I kneel beside the cold grey stone
That tells me, dearest, thou art gone
To realms more bless'd - and left me still
To struggle with this world of ill.
But oft from out the silent mound
Delusive fancy breathes a sound;
My pent-up heart within me burns,
And all the blessed past returns.
Thy form is present to mine eye,
Thy voice is whispering in mine ear,
The love that spake in days gone by;
And rapture checks the starting tear.
Thy deathless spirit wakes to fill
The faithful heart that loves thee still.
For thee the day's bright glow is o'er,
And summer's roses bloom no more;
The song of birds in twilight bowers,
The breath of spring's delicious flowers,
The towering wood and mountain height,
The glorious pageantry of night;
Which fill'd thy soul with musings high,
And lighted up thy speaking eye;
The mournful music of the wave
Can never reach thy lonely grave.
Thou dost but sleep!
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