Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1878-11-28
POETRY.
The Death of Bryant.
nY EpNuNp Q. srEApMAN.

OF her own poet heard a voice which came
From out the void, s'Thou art no longer lent
To Earth Z" when that incarnate spirit, blent
With the abiding force of waves that roll.
Wind-cradled vapors, circling sts7s that
flame,
one did recall How went
His antique shade, beaconed upon its way
Through the still aisles of night to universal
day?
Her voice it was, her sovereign voice, which
babe
The rlarth resolve his elemental mould;
And once more came her summons Long,
too long,
Thou lingerest, and charmest with thy song /.
Return return r' Thus Nature spoke, and
made
Her sign; and forthwith on the minstrel old
An arrow bright ald strong,
Fell from the bent bow of the answering Sun.
Who cried, "rhe song is closed, the invoca
ton done :"
But not as for those youths dead ere their
prime,
New-entered on their music's high domain,
Then snatcbed away, did all things sorrow
own;
No utterance now like that sad sweetest tone
When BiOn died, and the Sicilian rhyme
Bewailed; no sobbing of the reeds that
pl-in,
Rehearsing some last moan
OF Lycidas no strains which skyward swell
For Adonais still, and still for Astrophel
The MUSES. wept not for him as for those
OF whom each vanished like q beauteous
star
Quenched ere the shining midwstch Of the
night;
The greenwood Nymphs mourned not his lost
delight
Nor Echo, hidden in the tangled close,
Grieved that she could not mimic him afar.
He ceased not from our sight
Like him who, in the first glad flight OF
Spring,
Fell as an eagle pierced with shafts from his
own wing,
This was not Thyrsis no, the minstrel lone
And reverend, the woodland singer hoar,
Who was dear Natures nursing, and the
Whom most she loved; nor had his office
ceased
But for her mandate ''Seek again thine
own;
The walks of men shall draw thy steps no
more"
Softly, as from feast
The guest departs that hears low recall,
He went, and left behind his harp and
coronal.
"Return !" she cried, ''unto thine own re-
turn
Too long the pilgrimage; too long the dream
In which, lest thou shouldst be cOmpan-
ionless.
Unto the oracles thou hadst access &,
The sacred groves that with my presence
yearn."
The voice was heard by mountain, dell and
stream,
Meadow and wilderness
All fair things vestured by the changing
year,
Which now awoke in joy to welcome one
most dear.
"He comes P' declared the unseen ones that
haunt
The dark recesses, the infinitude
: OF whispering old oaks and soughing pines,
s.He comes 7" the warders of the forest
shrines
Sang joyously. ''His spirit ministrant
Henceforth with us shall walk the under
wood,
Till mortal ear divines
Its music added to our choral hymn,
Rising and falling far through archways deep
and dim"
The orchard fields, the hillside pastures green,
Put gladness on; the ripping harvest-wave
Ran like smile, as if moment there
dis shadow poised in the midsummer air
Above; the cataract took pearly sheen
Even as it leapt; the winding river gave
A sound of welcome where
He came, and trembled, far as to the sea
1t moves from rock-ribbed heights where its
dark fountains be.
His presence brooded on the rolling plain,
And on the lake there fell sudden calm
His own tranquility; the mountain bowed
Its head, and felt the GOODNESS of cloud,
And murmured, ''He is passing :" and again
Through all its frs the wind swept like a
psalm;
Its eagles, thunder-browed,
In that mist-moulded shape their kinsman
knew,
And circled high, and in his msntle scared
from view.
So drew he to the living veil, which hung
Of old above the deeps unimaged face,
And sought his own. Henceforward he is
free
OF vassalage to that mortality
Which men have given a sepulchre among
The pathways of their kinda resting place
Where bending one great knee,
Knelt the proud mother of mighty land
In tenderness, and came anon q plumbed
band.
Come one by one the seasons meetly drest,
To sentinel the relics of their seer,
First Spring-upon whose head a wreath was
OF wind-flow and the yellow violet
Advanced. Then Summer led his loveliest
OF months, one ever to the minstrel dear
(Her sweet eyes dewy wet),
June, and her sisters, whose brown hands
entwine
The brier-rose and the e-hannted columbine.
Next Autumn, like monarch sad of heart;
Came, tended by his melancholy days,
Purple he wore, and bore a golden rod,
His sceptre; and let fall upon the sod
A lone fringed gentian ere he would depart,
Scarce had his train gone darkling down
the ways
When Winter thither trod-
Winter, with beard and raiment blown before,
That was so seeming like our poet old and
boar.
What forms are these amid the pageant fair,
Harping with hands that falter? What sad
throng?
They wait in vain, mournful brotherhood,
And listen where their laurelled elder stood
For some last music fallen through the air.
"What cold, thin atmosphere now hears
thy song ?"
They ask, and long have wooed
The woods and waves that knew him, but
can learn
Nsught save the hollow, haunting cry, "Re
tvrn! Return :"
1T is queer story that comes from
New York that the real schemers for
robbing the Stewart family vault fn
l.