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POETRY. 



ELEGY. 



YES — Britain mourns; as with electric touch 

 For youth, for love, for happiness destroyed, 

 Her universal population melts 

 In grief" spontaneous, and hard hearts are rooved, 

 And rough unpolished natures learn to feel 

 For those they envied levelled in the dust 

 By Fate's impartial stroke, and puipits sound 

 With vanity and woe to earthly goods, 

 And urge and dry the tear. — Yet one there is 

 Who 'midst this general burst of grief remains 

 In strange tranquillity. "Whom not the stir 

 And long-drawn murmurs of the gathering crowd. 

 That by his very windows trail the pomp 

 Of hearse, and blazoned arms, and long array 

 Of sad funereal rites, nor the loud groans. 

 And deep-felt anguish of a husband's heart. 

 Can move to mingle with this flood one tear. 

 In careless apathy, perhaps in mirth, 

 He wears the day. Yet is he near in blood, 

 The very stem on which this blossom grew. 

 And at his knees she fondled in the charm, 

 And grace spontaneous, which alone belongs 

 To untaught infancy. — Yet oh forbear. 

 Nor deem him hard of heart ; for, awful, struck 

 By heaven's severest visitation, sad. 

 Like a scathed oak amidst the forest trees, 

 Lonely he stands; leaves bud, and shoot, and fall; 

 He holds no sympathy with living nature. 

 Or time's incessant change. Then in this hour. 

 While pensive thought 's busy with the woes 

 And restless change of poor humanity, 

 Think then, oh think of him, and breathe one prayer, 

 From the full tide of sorrow spare one tear. 

 For hira who does not weep^ 



Mrs. B d. 



FROM 



