THANATOPSIS. Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, Are but the solemn decorations all shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again; And to the sluggish clod, which the rude 21.5 Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, The globe are but a handful to the tribes Turns with his share, and treads upon. The Of morning, traverse Barca's desert sands, kings, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods there! And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their last sleep,-the dead reign there alone! So shalt thou rest; and what if thou with draw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long of ages glide away, the sons of men- In the full strength of years, matron and maid, The bowed with age, the infant in the smiles The powerful of the earth, the wise, the And beauty of its innocent age cut off N Broad-street buildings (on a winter night), Snug by his parlor fire, a gouty wight He noted all the sales of hops, Gum, galls, and groceries; ginger, gin, Tar, tallow, turmeric, turpentine, and tin; "Your footman, sir, has gone his nightly track To the King's Head, And left your door ajar, which I And thought it neighborly to give you notice." "Ten thousand thanks!" the gouty man replied; "You see, good sir, how to my chair I'm tied ; Ten thousand thanks how very few do get, In time of danger, Such kind attention from a stranger! "Indeed," replied the stranger (looking 'Then he's a double knave: He knows that rogues and thieves by scores Nightly beset unguarded doors; And see, how easily might one Of these domestic foes, And-walk off-thus "— So said, so done; he made no more remark. Nor waited for replies, But marched off with his prize, Leaving the gouty merchant in the dark. T was midnight, deep and still, in the mansion of Mrs. Partington,—as it was, very generally, about town,-on a cold night in March. So profound was the silence that it awakened Mrs. P., and she raised herself upon her elbow to listen. No sound greeted her ears, save the tick of the old wooden clock in the next room, which stood there in the dark, like an old crone, whispering and gibbering to itself. Mrs. Partington relapsed beneath the folds of the blankets, and had one eye again well-coaxed towards the realm of dreams, while the other was holding by a very frail tenure upon the world of reality, when her ear was saluted by the nibble of a mouse, directly beneath her chamber window, and the mouse was evidently gnawing her chamber carpet. Now, if there is an animal in the catalogue of creation that she dreads and detests, it is a mouse; and she has a vague and indefinite idea that rats and mice were made with especial regard to her individual torment. As she heard the sound of the nibble by the window, she arose again upon her elbow, and cried "Shoo! Shoo !" energetically, several times. The sound ceased, and she fondly fancied that her trouble was over. Again she laid herself away as carefully as she would have lain eggs at forty-five cents a dozen, when-nibble, nibble, nibble !—she once more heard the odious sound by the window. "Shoo!" cried the old lady again, at the same time hurling her shoe at the spot from whence the sound proceeded, where the little midnight marauder was carrying on his depredations. A light burned upon the hearth-she couldn't sleep without a light,and she strained her eyes in vain to catch a glimpse of her tormentor playing about amid the shadows of the room. All again was silent, and the clock, giving an admonitory tremble, struck twelve. Midnight! and Mrs. Partington counted the tintinabulous knots as they ran off the reel of Time, with a saddened heart. |