Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1857-08-05

From the Chicago Journal.
The Life of a Song.


The life of little song would be pleas
ant thing to write, and would make one OF
the sweetest biographies in the world. A
little song, we mean, that has gone abroad,
out of ones own heart, like full-fedged
bird from June.
Could one only know that some thought Of
his would thus take wing, and live when he
is dead, the hope he had not lived in vain
would warm his ebbing heart to beat again,
and win an Indian Summer for the soul.
So would he share the life of flowers; be
in his song renewed with each returning
Spring, for roses do not die; they only round
the winter with little sleep, and wake again.
How often isit that trife uttered between
the daylight and the dark of graver toll, is
counted by other minds thing of price, and
coveted by thieves, who throw away the set
ting, and so disguise the crime.
If any word of ours is destined to survive
the hand that wrote it, it will be because
some thief or other steals it into mutilated
fame. If it be fame to find ones name mis-
spelled in the Gazette, we do not know why
a song new-shod at some Parnassian smithy,
may not canter rhythm up the radiant steep.
Three years or more ago, some lines OF
ours led off regiment Of rhymes, that car
rier-boys spread all abroad one New Years
morning, to catch little rain of silver, if
they could.
1t was no new idea with them, for Mungo
Park carpeted patch of sand with garments,
and rung the dew out, to quench the fever of
his thirst.
Those lines unworthy, at first, Of the mer-
est mention, have been stolen over and over,
until-oh, happy we!-the latest thief has
stolen them into such consequence, that we
make bold to claim the wait, and call the
wanderers home.
THE LONG AGO.
Oh! wonderful stream is the river Time,
AS it runs through the realms Of tears,
With faultless rhythm and musical rhyme,
And a boundless sweep and q surge sublime,
AS it blends with the Ocean Of Years.
How the winters are drifting, like flakes of snow,
And the summers, like buds between;
And the year in the sheaf SO they and they 60
On the rivers breast, with its ebb and fow
AS it gides in the shadow and sheen.
There's magical ISLE up the river Time,
Where the softest of airs are playing;
There's cloudless sky and a tropical cline:
And song as sweet as vesper chime,
And the Junes with the roses are staying
And the name of that Isle is the LONG AGO.
And we bury our treasures there;
There are brows of beauty and bosoms Of snow
They are heaps of dust-but we loved them SO =
There are trinkets and tresses of hair;
There are fragments Of song that nobody sings,
And part of an infants prayer;
There's lutte unswept, and a harp without strings,
There are broken vows and pieces of rings,
And the garments that she used to wear.
There are hands that are waved, when the fairy
By the Mirage is lifted in air; [shore
And we sometimes hear, thro the turbulent roar,
Sweet voices we heard in the days gone before,
When the wind down the river is fair.
Oh, Remembered for aye, be the blessed Isle,
All the days of our life till night
When the evening comes with its beautiful smile
And our eyes are closing to slumber awhile,
May that " Greenwood" of Soul be In sight