Perhaps 'tis time; he is not formed for length of happy years, But wherefore darken thus my days with wild distracting fears? If we must part, oh! let me live in rapture while I may; Though hope must darken, while it lasts, let nothing cloud its ray.
Oh, bid me cherish brighter thoughts; my loving soul can tell How sad will be the hour to him that speaks the last farewell; I know his heart is agonized by the approaching doom, I know he loves me better than the cold and fearful tomb!
It is in vain they speak to me of bliss beyond the sky; This saddening thought afflicts my heart, that if indeed he die, The light that cheered my earthly love will seem obscure and dim, While he abides in purer realms, and I still live for him.
I know that holier hopes and joys around his soul will weave, While he among angelic loves, unconscious that I grieve, Will ne'er look down to see me weep, nor breathe a single sigh; O, GOD! it is a fearful thought--and this it is to die!
'To him who in the love of nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language.'
Wednesday, June twenty-first. How little do people who ride along in their carriages, or rattle over the ground in stage-coaches, or rush over its surface in rail-cars, know of the pleasures of travelling! They roll _over_ the country; they cannot be said to pass _through_ it. They may see new rivers, new mountains, and new faces; but for all the good the last does them, they might as well have stood on the corner of the street in a city half a day, and watched the passers-by. And better too; for hotel-keepers, and waiters, and the whole tribe of public functionaries, have all an artificial, professional look; so that it is difficult to come at their real characters, if indeed they have any. The same is the case, to some extent, with their fellow-passengers. All are so absorbingly interested in their own brilliant thoughts; or they deem it incumbent on them to assume the dignity and authority befitting persons in high stations; (which dignity at home, by the by, is put one side into a dark corner and never thought of,) that it is about as profitable an undertaking to attempt to find out the personal feelings and sentiments of a mask, as theirs.
