Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/228

212 AMELIA B. WELBY. [1830-40. Indeed, during the last few years of her life, these notes and letters formed the only means through which her beautiful fancies were conveyed. She had ceased almost entirely to write verses, and a change was coming over her mind. Her genius was seeking some new form of development. Before, however, her friends could see even the foreshadowings of this new form, this accomplished poetess and estimable woman was called away to join her voice with the angelic choir, whose harmonies are the delight and the glory of the celestial world. On a bright May morning, such as her own songs have taught us to love, when the earth was redolent of beauty, and the flowers were sending up to heaven the incense of their perfumes ; when all rejoicing nature was pouring out its morning orison to its Creator, the angels sent by her heavenly Father came and bore her spirit to its home in the skies. And so " She lias passed, like a bird, from the minstrel throng, She has gone to the land where the lovely belong! " The following lines, written by AmeHa on the death of a sister poetess,* will form a fitting conclusion to this sketch, and a fitting tribute to her own memory : She has passed, like a bird, from the minstrel throng, She has gone to the land where the lovely belong ! Her place is hush'd by her lover's side, Yet his heart is full of his fair young bride ; The hopes of his spirit are crushed and bowed As he thinks of his love in her long white shroud ; For the fragrant sighs of her perfumed breath Were kissed from her lips by his rival — Death. Cold is her bosom, her thin white arms All mutely crossed o'er its icy charms. As she lies, like a statue of Grecian art. With a marbled brow and a cold hushed heart ; Her locks are bright, but their gloss is hid ; Her eye is sunken 'neath its waxen lid : And thus she lies in her narrow hall — Oui" fair young minstrel — the loved of all. Light as a bird's were her springing feet, Her heart as joyous, her song as sweet ; Yet never again shall that heart be stirred With its glad wild songs like a singing bird : Ne'er again shall the strains be sung, That iu sweetness dropped from her silver tongue ; The music is o'er, and Death's cold dart Hath broken the spell of that free, glad heai't. Often at eve, when the breeze is still, And the moon floats up by the distant hill. As I wander alone 'mid the summer bowers, And wreathe my locks with the sweet wild flowers, I will think of the time when she lingered there, With her mild blue eyes, and her long fair hair ; I will treasure her name in my bo^oui-core : But my heart is sad — 1 can sing no more. ♦Laura M. Thurston.