With footsteps like the falling snow, The gracious Lady who looked down They pluck the honeysuckle's bloom, All bathed in pity's gentle showers And there they lie! profoundly calm! By that fair band the bier is borne Bowed and uncovered every head, Glen-Etive and its mountains lie Glides softly from the orphan-band Then wildly sings a funeral hymn! HYMN. O beautiful the streams That through our valleys run, Singing and dancing in the gleams Of summer's cloudless sun. The sweetest of them all From its fairy banks is gone; Up among the mountains In soft and mossy cell, By the silent springs and fountains The queen-rose of the wilderness And the shepherds see no loveliness Birds cheer our lonely groves With many a beauteous wing— When happy in their harmless loves How tenderly they sing. O'er all the rest was heard One mild and mournful strain, But hushed is the voice of that hymning bird, She ne'er must sing again! Bright through the yew-trees' gloom, I saw a sleeping dove! On the silence of her silvery plume, The grove seemed all her own Round the beauty of that breastBut the startled dove afar is flown! Forsaken is her nest! In yonder forest wide A flock of wild-deer lies, Beauty breathes o'er each tender side The hunter in the night Hath singled out the doe, In whose light the mountain-flock lay bright, Whose hue was like the snow! A thousand stars shine forth, With pure and dewy ray — Till by night the mountains of our north O empty all the heaven! Though a thousand lights be there- That melancholy music dies— And all at once the kneeling crowd Is stirred with groans, and sobs, and sighs— Along the silent skies. -Hush! hush! the dirge doth breathe again! With rosy cheeks, and smiling eyes, -What! though the stream be dead, It murmureth now o'er a lovelier bed What! though our prayers from death What! though our bird of light In heaven I see her glancing bright- What! though the dark tree smile In heaven's untroubled deep. True that our beauteous doe Hath left her still retreatBut purer now in heavenly snow She lies at Jesus' feet. O star! untimely set! Why should we weep for thee! PROFESSOR WILSON. Paradise. BLISSFUL Paradise Of God the garden was, by him in the East |