Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 371, May 23, 1829 - Various - Страница 3
THE BIRD OF THE TOMB
ОглавлениеBY LEIGH CLIFFE
(For the Mirror.)
In "Lyon's attempt to reach Repulse Bay," the following passage, which suggested these verses, may be met with. "Near the large grave was a third pile of stones, covering the body of a child. A Snow-Buntin (the Red-Breast of the Arctic Regions) had found its way through the loose stones which composed this little tomb, and its now forsaken, neatly built nest, was found placed on the neck of the child."
Beneath the chilly Arctic clime,
Where Nature reigns severe, sublime,
Enthron'd upon eternal snows,
Or rides the waves on icy floes—
Where fierce tremendous tempests sweep
The bosom of the rolling deep,
And beating rain, and drifting hail
Swell the wild fury of the gale;
There is a little, humble tomb,
Not deckt with sculpture's pageant pride,
Nor labour'd verse to tell by whom
The habitant was lov'd who died!
No trophied 'scutcheon marks the grave—
No blazon'd banners round it wave—
'Tis but a simple pile of stones
Rais'd o'er a hapless infant's bones;
Perchance a mother's tears have dew'd
This sepulchre, so frail and rude;—
A father mourn'd in accents wild,
His offspring lost—his only child—
Who might, in after years, have spread
A ray of honour round his head,
Nor thought, as stone on stone he threw,
His child would meet a stranger's view.
But, lo! upon its clay-cold breast,
The Arctic Robin rais'd its nest,
And rear'd its little fluttering young,
Where Death in awful quiet slept,
And fearless chirp'd, and gaily sung
Around the babe its parents wept.
It was the guardian of the grave,
And thus its chirping seem'd to say:—
"Tho' naught from Death's chill grasp could save,
Tho' naught could chase his power away—
As round this humble spot I wing,
My thrilling voice shall daily sing
A requiem o'er the faded flower,
That bloom'd and wither'd in an hour,
And prov'd life is, in every view,
Naught but a rose-bud twin'd with rue.
A blossom born at day's first light,
And fading with the earliest night;
Nor stranger's step, nor shrieking loom,
Shall scare the warbler from the tomb'"
