THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD.

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BYRON.

[This sweetly mournful refrain, should be delivered with sad earnestness; as though the speaker was describing the fate of his own family.]

HEY grew in beauty side by side,

They filled our home with glee;

Their graves are severed, far and wide,

By mount, and stream, and sea.

The same fond mother bent at night

O'er each fair sleeping brow;

She had each folded flower in sight,

Where are those dreamers now?

One, 'midst the forests of the West,

By a dark stream is laid,—

The Indian knows his place of rest,

Far in the cedar shade.

The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one,

He lies where pearls lie deep;

He was the loved of all, but none

O'er his low bed may weep.

One sleeps where southern vines are drest

Above the noble slain:

He wrapt his colours round his breast,

On a blood-red field of Spain.

And one—o'er her the myrtle showers

Its leaves, by soft winds fanned;

She faded 'midst Italian flowers,—

The last of that bright band.

And parted thus they rest, who played

Beneath the same green tree;

Whose voices mingled as they prayed

Around one parent knee!

They that with smiles lit up the hall,

And cheered with song the hearth,—

Alas! for love, if thou wert all,

And nought beyond, oh, earth!


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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