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242  SARAH HELENA WHITMAN.

Ay, this is he—the minstrel, prophet, king,
Before whose arms princes and warriors sank;
Who dwelt beneath Jehovah's mighty wing,
And from the "river of his pleasures" drank;
Or through the rent pavilions of the storm
Beheld the cloud of fire that veiled his awful form.

And now he stands as when in Elah's vale,
Where warriors set the battle in array,
He met the Titan in his ponderous mail,
Whose haughty challenge many a Summer's day
Rang through the border hills, while all the host
Of faithless Israel heard and trembled at his boast.

Till the slight stripling from the mountain fold
Stood, all unarm'd amid their sounding shields,
And in his youth's first bloom, devoutly hold,
Dared the grim champion of a thousand fields;
So stands he now, as in Jehovah's might
Glorying, he met the foe and won the immortal fight.

SHE BLOOMS NO MORE.

O SPRING! youth of the year—fair mother of flowers! Thou 
returnest, but with thee return not the serene and fortunate days of joy.—
Guarina.

I DREAD to see the Summer sun
Come glowing up in the sky,
And modest flow'rets, one by one,
Opening the violet eye;
The choral melody of June—
The perfumed breath of heaven—
The dewy morn—the radiant noon—
The lingering light of even;

SARAH HELENA WHITMAN.  243

These, which so charm'd my careless heart
In happy days gone by,
A deeper sadness now impart
To memory's thoughtful eye.
They speak of one who sleeps in death,
Her race untimely o'er,
Who ne'er shall waste Spring's honied breath,
Nor see her glories more.

Of one who shared with me, in youth,
Life's sunshine and its flowers,
And kept unchanged her bosom's truth
Through all its darkest hours.
She faded when the leaves were sere,
And wailed the Autumn blast;
With all the glories of the year
From earth her spirit pass'd.

Again the nodding lilac bows
beneath its plumy crest;
In yonder hedge the hawthorn blows,
The robin builds his nest.
The floating vines she loved to train
Around her lattice, rear
Their snowy coronals again,
And hang their garlands there.

But she can bloom on earth no more
Whose early doom I mourn,
Nor Spring, nor Summer, can restore
Our flower untimely shorn;
Her smile is gone, which beamed on me
With mild and steadfast light;
Her rosy lips have mournfully
Breathed out their last good night.

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-06-28 19:32:10