CYPRESS. 
247 
THE CYPRESS-TREE. 
Blackwood’s magazine. 
A slender tree upon a height in lonely beauty towers, 
So dark, as if it only drank the rushing thunder showers; 
When birds were at their evening hymns, in thoughtful 
reverie, 
I’ve marked the shadows deep and long, from yonder 
cypress-tree. 
I’ve thought of oriental tombs, of silent cities, where 
In many a row the cypress stands, in token of despair ! 
And thought, beneath the evening star, how many a 
maiden crept 
From life’s discordant scene, and o’er the tomb in silence 
wept. 
I’ve thought, thou lonely cypress-tree, thou hermit of the 
grove, 
How many a heart, alas ! is doomed forlorn on earth to 
rove; 
When all that charmed the morn of life, and cheered the 
youthful mind, 
Have like the sunbeams passed away, and left but clouds 
behind ! 
Thou wert a token unto me, thou stem with dreary leaf, 
So desolate thou look’st, as earth were but a home of 
grief! 
A few short years shall swiftly glide, and then thy boughs 
shall wave, 
When tempests beat, and breezes sigh, above my silent 
grave ! 
