But hark! that horn again resounds aloud, Like sudden music bursting from a cloud: "Good night!" "Good night!" along the mountain breaks, "Good night!" "Good night!" again each echo wakes; And all the scene, below, around, above, Teems with "Good night!" the evening pledge of love. The eagle, soaring, waits upon the wing, Charmed with the notes the syren echoes sing; The startled chamois bounds along the hill, Yet, half-enraptured, turns to listen still; From mount to valley, and from wold to wild, The sounds are borne along, till, faint and mild, "Good night," shall linger in the echoes' song, When all to silence and to sleep belong.
ONE day--the sunbeams danced along the glade As lovers dance upon their bridal eve-- I wandered to the wood, where all was bloom; The earth breathed fresh with fragrance, and the trees Dropped, as it were, the dew of silent joy. I loved to listen to the song of birds, Whose music wild, yet sweet, came o'er the ear, Telling of ecstasy; and, more than all, I loved to view the flowers, those stars of earth, As stars are flowers of heaven, those glimpses bright Of a far higher, purer, lovelier world; Those day dreams of Creation, blooming wild, Scattered on earth, like angel-smiles in heaven. Oh! I was happy then, for all above, And all below, was fair, and pure, and bright; And then I thought that happier still I'd be If my freed soul could fleet, as dew from grass, When the glad morning sun is shining forth, Passing so silently away from earth; If that were all--if death itself were _death_-- But after death comes life, more true than this.
I lay and listened to a wild bird's song, A little shining, singing, flutt'ring thing: Its song was full of sweetness and of love: When, lo! it fell before me on the ground, And found its grave among a bank of flowers-- Who would not die, to find a grave so sweet? I ran and lifted it--'twas cold and stiff, And in its little heart an arrow sought Unsanctified admittance, quivering there, Like an unwelcome messenger of fate. The spoiler came--I drew his arrow out, And threw it on the earth--he trod it down, As he passed onward in his careless path.
And this is death! How sudden, and how strong! His harvest ne'er begins nor ends, for still His scythe is ready ere the corn is ripe, We cannot shun the stroke; but if prepared To meet it when it falls, its sting is gone!