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Or rambles o’er this lonely rale uncurbed,
While the coy weasel wanders undisturbed.
By moonlight, here the skulking possum comes,
Here the sly fox, a shadowy spectre, roams,
And to the wind,.at dismal dead of night,
Bays forth his desolation, mid the blight
That like some bird of evil omen spreads
His giant wings, and in their shadow sheds
The baleful influence of a dark decay,
Where ruin’s sceptre holds despotic sway.
And oft commingled all these doleful sounds,
The traveller,' passin g by these shadowy grounds,
With trembling hears, at twilight, or at dawn,
And, panic-stricken, flies the haunted lawn.
This ruin fills my shrinking heart with dread,
And turns my thoughts to wander with the dead;
From pleasant fields which bliss was roaming
o’er,
Fate drives the trembler through her jarring
door;
Then turns to rouse -within my breast the wo,
Which slumbered lulled by memory’s genial
glow,
And points with scorn to friends that moulder
here
With boding lines of spectres hovering near,
The phantom hosts which dark despair arrays
When hope withdraws,and pallsher genial blaze.
My flowing joys, alas! too soon congealed,
Look back and find their miser fountain sealed,
So soon that fountain ceases its supply,
And leaves my freezing pleasures all to lie
In icy chains and shrouding fetters bound,
Like corpses scattered o’er the spectral ground.
Oft when the woodman, with unfeeling blow,.
Leaves on the ground, with cheerless ice and
snow,
Some luckless tree, to die mid wind and rain,
As winter goes, it seeks to bloom again ;
The scanty sap flows through its fibry veins,
And swells its buds, amid congenial rains;
The flowers half burst, and then the gladdening
tree,
Amid its gay companions, smiles to see
The bloomy flush of fast I'eturning spring,
With life and hope upon her balmy wing.
With loving faitji its beaming face it turns,
To catch the streams of life for which it yearns,
But finding that in vain it seeks supplies,
It droops its disappointed head and dies.
So here, at first, on fancy’s wing returned
The spring of youth, my yearning bosom burned
With all of joyful hope’s electric glow,
And felt the streams of bliss begin to flow,
Fill up my breast, meander through my veins,
Drive out my sorrows, dissipate my pains,
And from hope’s buds which slept in wintry
gloom,
The flowers of bliss once more began to bloom.
But ah! my joys soon lost the scanty flow
Of life that caused these genial flowers to blow,
And, roused to ponder times relentless change,
Now hopeless o’er the paths of youth I range.
My withered hope's, like flowers upon the ground,
Lie mouldering with these mouldering ruins
round:
Yet here, one hour, dear home of brighter days’
I’ll linger, led thro’ memory’s magic maze,
Recount the joys, renew the scenes of youth,
And blink the stern reality of truth.
Haply the. task may rouse some slumbering joy
That used to haunt the visions of the boy,
And hope once more perchance the sceptre
grasp, .
And me, the wanderer, to her bosom clasp,
Too happy if but for on,c moment free—
Small boon, ’tis true, but all enough for me;
And then I’ll turn a pilgrim once again,
And leave the shades of this long cherished
plain,
An exiled stranger from his native sky,
Upon some foreign strand to droop and die.
Wearing Mourning.
Not only does wearing mourning do no
good, but it actually does harm. In the
first place, it is injurious to tire health of
females who wear it. This is the testimo
ny of' medical men, of various intelligent
females who have Been the victims of wear
ing black, and is in accordance with the ob
servation of all. Who has not pitied in his
heart of hearts the poor woman loaded down
in summer’s heat, with heavy, worsted
clothing, in order to be in the fashion of
wearing black 1 Does not the bloom of
health always depart from the cheek of her
who wears mourning long at a time l
Wearing black is a mockery of the dead.
It is sinful and heartless to make a fashion
of sorrow in so serious and solemn a tiling
as death. Mourning apparel is very often
nothing but a black falsehood. Many times
it says, I sorrow for the departed, when
the truth is, it either is glad at heart, or at
least indifferent.
When I was a bdy, a young man, a few
years my senior, lost his sister. I thought
he ought to be very a sad on account of it,
and indicate it at lease by a quiet and sub
dued manner. A few days after the de
cease of his sister— (not a week had elap
sed)—I saw him, and he had a showy crape
upon a showy beaver, and a flaunting sable
streamer upon his elbow. It was at church.
I heard it from every tongue that this young
man was in mourning for his sister. The
fumes of brandy, though, were upon his
breath ; ribaldry and blasphemy 7 upon his
tongue ; and in the back ground, licentious
ness in his conduct. And this, thought I—
this is mourning for a sister! I have nev
er forgotten it—I can nevet forget it—this
mockery 7 of a dear deceased sister by 7 wear
ing black.
There is a fitness and a propriety which
should be observed in all things. Is it fit
and proper to put mourning upon the back,
or to keep it there, when mourning is not in
the heart? To do so, is to be guilty of
falsehood : for a man or a woman can act
falsehood, as well as speak it. It can never
be right, to be guilty of untruth, especially
in connection with so serious a subject as
death.
It is really demoralizing—this habit of
wearing black. For whatever brings down
to a mere fashion what should be some of
the most exalted and dignified impulses of
our nature—our regrejs in Connection with
a deceased friend—is obliged to unhinge,
to a degree, the moral nature and the moral
sense of a human being.
There are lessons that death teaches,
which we should all learn. It teaches that
man is mortal ; that we are dependent up
on our Maker for our brief span of life, and
for every breath we draw ; that .neither we
nor our friends have any abiding home up
on earth, and that if we expect ever to en
joy a permanent and eternal home,, in all
the loveliness of home, it must be in heav
en. Death “ points the way to glory and
to God.” These suggestions are elevating
and ennobling ! Hew wrong jt is tj^at when,
God and Heaven demand our whole
thoughts by means of the call upon our de
ceased friends—how wrong it is that we
should degrade those thoughts to the selec
tion of a dress, or the color of a ribbon !
God smites oui hearts, and calls upon us to
do homage at his foot-stool—and oh! we
forsake the courts of Jehovah, and go and
lay our hearts at the shrine of' Fashion J
That this demoralizes our nature, there
cannot be a doubt: and when we remember
that a sable dress is too often a black false
hood, it is more demoralizing still.
Under the present circumstances, wear
ing black is particularly wrong and sinful.
Our soldiers, we are-told, are suffering for
clothing. And yet thousands upon thou
sands are now being spent in this country 7 ,
as a useless expense in the purchase of arti
cles of mourning apparel—enough almost
to clothe the army. Is this the way to
show our respect for departed friends—
spending money for mourning when other
friends, and the companions in arms of those
whom we mourn, are shivering in the cold,
and pinched with hunger ? Gracious Heav-
eu, how man perverts thy blessings !
Another reason why it is wrong to wear
black at this particular time, is because, al-
1W the rich may possibly obtain it, the
poor cannot possibly do so. Vi ith thepres-
ent’liigli prices of things, it is as much as
they can do to live.
But some one may answer me, that if the
poor cannot obtain mourning apparel, it is
their misfortune— their bad luck—and be
cause they cannot obtain it, that is no rea-