1856.] R eflections hy a Resident of the Hill Side. 387 



precursor to that winter of age which freezes hioi in death ' Al 

 though man is a gregarious animal, yet there are hours in the history 

 of every one when he will prefer to be solitary and alone. These 

 feehngs generally pervade him most when the ''melancholy days 

 have come-the saddest of the year;" the falling leaf, the moanin! 

 winds, and the entire change in nature^ wardrobe tend^ to this re^uU 

 I IS emblematical of the many mutations and evanescent chano^s 

 along the stream of time; and is well calculated to shade our life 

 with many hues. A tint to-day is a blight to-morrow; the bud of 

 yesterday is a full blown rose to-day. Man has his pleasures and his 

 pams-his joys and his sorrows-his hours of festiye gaiety and his 

 hours of sadness.^ Hope and prosperity buoy him up; mfsfortune 

 disease and calamity, weigh him down. To-day he gives promise of a 

 long hfe-to-morrow confined within the narrow lids of a coffin ' 



An hour s drive from the great metropolis of the West, the mart of 

 trade, the d.n and bustle of wordly men, and we were in' the deposit- 

 house of the dead! What a contrast! The fevered brain the 

 anxious heart of an hour before, was now contemplating, in serene 

 and_ melancholy repose, the last resting place of man! In the city 

 all IS bust e and excitement-here all is silent and at rest. How 

 soothing! how mournful! 



" There is a calm for those who weep, 

 A rest for weary pilgrims found, 

 They softly lie and sweetly sleep 

 Low in the ground. 



•'The storm that rocks the winter sky 

 No more disturbs their deep repose, 

 Than summer-evening's latest sigh, 

 That shuts the rose." 

 Our thoughs can only find vent in a rhapsody of words. Here they 

 he around us, the very greatest, not now equal to the be-o-ar that 

 staryes in the market! -And to this coniplexwn we mnsrcome at 

 last!'' Like the meditative " Hervey," or gloomy "Hamlet/' it is 

 well to hold m serious contemplation, " that undiscovered country from 

 ichose bourne no traveler returns." For death makes no distinctions • 

 his will IS umpire ; from his mandate there is no appeal. Monarch and 

 maiden, sage, soldier, poet, hero, philosopher, the vassal and the kinr., 

 the youthful and the old, the great and the small, the evil and the 

 just; yea, all shall sooner or later be cut down with his relentless 

 scythe. The charnel-house is filled with our moldering clay. 



As our mind took in the images of those, once loved, now buried 



